Do Not Depart

Encouragement and Tools to Abide in God's Word

You are here: Home / Archives for Serving

A call to all & the gift of hospitality

by 6 Comments

When she opened the door to her humble home, warmth flooded into the night. A quick scan revealed simple furnishings and few decorations. Aromas wafted out of a small collection of dishes, exposing the time she spent preparing for our arrival. The only richness was the joy at our arrival, though we were strangers just days before. The scene would never be on glossy magazine pages or a network home show, but I’d never felt more cherished and comfortable in the home of a host. Her life said, “Welcome” as she graciously displayed the gift of hospitality.

What is hospitality?

If spiritual gifts are for the common good of the body of Christ, hospitality is the tray upon which they are served. Like other qualities of Christ followers, an hospitable spirit is not only expected of those so uniquely gifted. All followers of Christ are called on to, “Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality,” (Romans 12:13). While the expression of welcome impacts those in the Church, the word for “hospitality” is “philozenia,” a combination of two words that mean:  affection + strangers. If only offered to our church, family, and friends, hospitality is incomplete.

Hospitality Do Not Depart

How does hospitality look?

Hospitality overflows from a heart of genuine love. We love others because we were first loved by God (1 John 4:19). The Romans 12 passage explains that sincere love results in an enthusiastic desire to serve the Lord, motivation to work hard, and inspiration to practice a lifestyle of hospitality. “Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace,” (1 Peter 4:9-10). All believers should practice being open to receive others into their lives and homes, but some are uniquely gifted with a divine measure and ability to host and serve others.

You might have the spiritual gift of hospitality if:

  1. You want to bring people into your home for fellowship and food.
  2. You create an atmosphere where people feel valued and welcomed.
  3. Your home/environment feels comfortable and safe to guests.
  4. You put people at ease when meeting them or hosting them.
  5. You enjoy sharing your home, relationships, food, and resources.
  6. You take initiative to plan events to bring people together.
  7. You extend yourself to others and find they are drawn to you.
  8. You overcome challenges of cleaning, budget limits, or cooking to host.
  9. You use appropriate etiquette and planning as tools to care for people.
  10. You delight in having people in your space, especially your home.

Why we’re starved for hospitality

Sadly, as cultures become more affluent, people tend to raise expectations, retreat in privacy, and to put up invisible barriers around their homes. Images of perfectly coiffed living rooms and camera-ready meals have us believing we need to be professionals before we open our lives and homes to church members, family, friends, or strangers.  Let’s not hold back. We are stewards of our homes, to be used for welcome.  Hospitality does not pause or cease because we have little or because aren’t winning cooking awards. A life of welcome has nothing to do with riches or comfort. People today are starved for the ministry of hospitality.

  • I remember the night I discovered pure hospitality.
  • I don’t remember the food; maybe we ate pizza.
  • I don’t remember the dishes; maybe we used paper plates.
  • I don’t remember a centerpiece; maybe there was none.
  • I don’t remember a seasonal wreath; I only know it was an open door.
  • I remember the beautiful fragrance of a life that says, “Welcome.”

If you want to cultivate hospitality in your life, do a quick clean up, get some simple food (cheese & crackers & fruit?), and ask the Lord to show you who needs a welcome.

If you’re an introvert and find hospitality challenging, you might like to read this.

If you’d like to read an example of a woman with the spiritual gift of hospitality, and read applications for using it in the workplace, church, and family, you would enjoy this short overview.

Click to TWEET This >>  Hospitality is the tray upon which spiritual gifts are served http://wp.me/p1Su7F-2Xy #Hospitality #SpiritualGifts via @DoNotDepart

I want my kids to serve!

by 12 Comments

Kids-who-serve_DoNotDepart

Nobody wants a lazy, selfish kid. So we pray, we teach, we assign, we lead. (And sometimes beg, cry, quit—and pray a lot more.)

Teaching kids to be servants is not for the idle. Here are four questions to consider and ideas to try for training your child to better love and serve others.

1. WHAT DOES MY CHILD ENJOY?

Draw on your child’s natural interests and gifts. Is she creative? Let her draw pictures to pass out to the elderly at church, send to grandparents out of town, or take room-to-room at a nursing home. Does your teenager love being outside? Let him mow the lawn for new parents in your neighborhood or be a student chaperone at the middle-schoolers’ campout. A budding musician? My young friend Jamie recorded and sent her song to a young man bedridden with a fatal illness. It was so valuable to his family that Jamie was asked to sing the song at his funeral.

While we all have to serve in ways we don’t like (who longs to clean a toilet?), we usually get hooked on serving by doing what we do like. Discover what your child enjoys and watch them become devoted to serving that way.

2. WHAT ARE MY GIFTS?

Share how you enjoy serving. If you teach Sunday school, let your child assist you for a semester. If photography is your gift, arrange for you and your child to take pictures for families with foster kids. One of my passions is to serve the homeless so I brought my daughter to the simple wedding of some homeless friends. She brought her camera (her passion) and ended up creating a wedding album for them for free, a blending of both our passions.

If you enjoy what you’re doing as a gift, not a duty, your joy is contagious. It might slow you down with a child along, but service isn’t about efficiency; it’s about people.

3. WHERE ARE WE ALREADY SERVING?

Look closer where God is already working in your family. Maybe you don’t need a new venture, but can expand an existing one. If your daughter’s Girl Scout troop plants flowers at a neighborhood park, maybe you and she can follow up with weeding once a month. My kids had an annual service project with their classmates at a soup kitchen. But when we learned they appreciated volunteers any time, we went back as a family more frequently. When my sister-in-law brought her grandson to visit my mother in assisted living, she took him around to brighten the day of other residents as well. Even babies (especially babies!) can serve in that way.

Once you start imagining, many opportunities may unravel out of an existing one.

4. WHO NEEDS HELP?

Watch for needs in your own home, your neighborhood, and your world. Then find age-appropriate ways to help. Maybe you can’t travel overseas with your little ones, but your kids can pray for missionary families and write letters to encourage them. My area had an EF3 tornado rip through last month. While it wasn’t the place for young children to help, I saw many teenagers who were great servants in cleaning up the debris.

God prepares good works for us to do; we just have to see them and respond. (Ephesians 2:10).

WHO BENEFITS WHEN KIDS SERVE?

Obviously others will benefit as your child serves them. But don’t judge the value of the service by how many it reaches or how much appreciation is expressed (or not). Given with the proper attitude, all service is worship to God if it touches another soul with His love. When good works point toward God, He is honored by getting the glory He deserves (Matthew 5:16).

Your child will also be blessed (it is more blessed to give than to receive! Acts 20:35). Maybe they can’t see it immediately, but they will as they grow in compassion, in skills, and in Christ-likeness. When they invest in others, it grows their love for others (Matthew 6:21).

But you, the parent, will also profit! When my youngest wanted to go to Central America on a mission trip, I decided to go just to keep an eye on her. But I ended up being changed by the experience myself. While our serving prompts our children’s serving, their serving also enhances ours, allowing the Lord to work on our hearts and increase our own willingness to initiate service.

Serving together, after all, is how Jesus taught His own disciples to serve. He apprenticed His twelve apostles by living together for three years. They watched, learned, and participated in what He was doing, then learned to do it on their own once He left.

Isn’t that what you want for your children? Let them watch, learn, and participate with you now. Then when they’re on their own, by God’s grace, they’ll keep it up themselves.

Want to share this post? Click to tweet:

“Nobody wants a lazy kid. 4 guidelines for training your child to serve: http://wp.me/p1Su7F-2WG @DoNotDepart” tweet here

“All service is worship to God if it touches another with His love. http://wp.me/p1Su7F-2WG @DoNotDepart” tweet here

Let the Children Come - monthly feature on helping children to abide in God's Word via DoNotDepart.com

Give us your advice on helping kids serve.
What has worked for you? Not worked? Let’s share with each other.

 

How to Serve Like Jesus

by 8 Comments

How to Serve Like Jesus-Do Not Depart
How to Serve Like Jesus (Photo Courtesy: UnSplash)

In Romans 12, Paul listed serving as one of the Spiritual Gifts. He said, “If your gift is serving others, serve them well” (Romans 12:7, NLT).

The question, then, is this: what does it mean to serve others well?

I think the answer can be found in John 13:1-17, when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet.

“Before the Passover celebration, Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave this world and return to his Father. He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth, and now he loved them to the very end. It was time for supper, and the devil had already prompted Judas, son of Simon Iscariot, to betray Jesus. Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority over everything and that he had come from God and would return to God. So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist, and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash the disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel he had around him” (John 13:1-5).

As I studied these verses, God reminded me of three important aspects of Jesus’ service.

1. Jesus served well because he knew who he was.

“Jesus knew that the Father had given him authority…So he…” The word “so” is crucial in this text, because it tells us why Jesus served. Jesus was able to stoop down and wash the grime from his disciples’ feet because he knew who he was. He didn’t need to worry about what his disciples might think of him for stooping down to serve, because he knew who he was in God’s eyes.

For us to serve well, we need to know who we are.

We need to stop worrying about how we look or what others think of us and start recognizing what God thinks of us. We are his beloved children. We are HIS. Yes, we are sinners, but we are sinners saved by grace through Jesus Christ. Who cares if you’re washing a toilet or cleaning up vomit; the God of the universe loves you!

2. Jesus served well because he kept his eyes on what mattered most.

This incident occurred right before Jesus died. If there were ever a time when Jesus deserved to be selfish, it was at this very moment.

But Jesus didn’t think of himself. Instead, he thought of those sitting around him. He thought of how he could spend his final few moments teaching them and equipping them to lead others.

1 Peter 4:11 says this about service: “If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides.” I imagine it took a lot of strength for Jesus to serve his disciples (especially Judas) just hours before his execution. But he was able to do so because he leaned on God for strength and kept his focus heavenward.

We too serve well when we focus our eyes on the things that matter for eternity, rather than on the here-and-now.

3. Jesus served well because of love.

Verse 1 of John 13 says Jesus loved his disciples to the very end. That is why he served them…because of love.

And that is why we serve too…because of our love for God and our love for others.

If we’re motivated by looking good or appearing religious, we’re not serving anyone but ourselves. To serve well-to serve like Jesus served-our actions must be motivated by love.

What other aspects of Jesus’ service stand out to you? 

Tweetables:

What does it mean to serve others well? #SpiritualGifts @DoNotDepart http://wp.me/p1Su7F-2UZ  Click to Tweet

To serve well-to serve like Jesus served-our actions must be motivated by love. @DoNotDepart #SpiritualGifts  http://wp.me/p1Su7F-2UZ  Click to Tweet

How to serve like Jesus: http://wp.me/p1Su7F-2UZ #SpiritualGifts @DoNotDepart Click to Tweet

*Photo Courtesy: Unsplash

Sharing the Word Through Service

by 7 Comments

I love words, and words carry power.

But action itself speaks, meets needs, and shares God’s love (and, yes, His Word in action) in affective ways.

With less than a week until Christmas, we might be tempted to say, “I didn’t serve as much or as well as I wanted this season. And now it’s too late.”Sharing the Word through Service - Ideas from Do Not Depart

It’s not too late! Below are several ideas you can implement this week to share God’s love and His word through serving others. Build these activities into family time, and worship through serving others with His heart.

Sharing the Word with Action

Here are a few ways we can serve people now and share God’s love through action:

  • One of our team writers, Teri Lynne, shares 10 Ways to Help in Your Community on her personal blog. These ideas require little planning and most can be implemented in an afternoon.
  • Grab a few friends and/or family members and go caroling in a neighborhood. When you carol, choose songs spreading the joy of the season. Sing one or two, wish the neighbors a “Merry Christmas,” and then move on to the next house! It’s a non-pushy, fun way to spread word of His birth.
  • Set up Christmas lights between two trees or in your yard simply forming the word “peace,” “joy,” or “love.”
  • Prioritize your emphasis on the season and intentionally renew your focus on Him daily, inwardly and as an outward example. Christmas is not about a certain number of gifts or how busy we can be, but is about celebrating His birth, presences, and grace. (Verses that help me when I begin to feel stressed: Luke 2:10, Luke 10:41-42, and Ephesians 2:8-9.)
  • Make homemade gifts with your kids with the Word included, like these chalk pastel paintings, this “Joy” word sign, this Christmas carol plaque, or this verse-a-day gift.
  • Lead a group of (willing) neighborhood kids or a church preschool class in nativity-focused games and activities, like this Find and Fill Nativity Lesson.
  • If it’s cold enough if your area, make a few of these beautiful ice ornaments and include wooden letters spelling out “joy” or “peace.”
  • Stick these tags on your gifts and give away the bookmarks!
  • Donate to worth-while and Christ-focused causes.

A few ideas you can jump in on now and save for next year:

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” – John 1:14

 

How are you and your family sharing God’s Word through service this season (and throughout the year)? What’s one way you include His Word in your gifts or actions? Share in the comments below.

Serve, Give, Tell … This Is Why He Came

by Leave a Comment

But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you. But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”   Matthew 20:25-28, emphasis added

Serving, Service, Giving, Generosity, Sacrifice

Jesus came for specific reasons and in this passage, we find two of the most significant.

To Serve and To Give His Life as a Ransom

Jesus came to show us how to live and to give us the opportunity for eternal life.

When we serve, we look like Him.   When we give generously and sacrificially, we look like Him.

And, best of all, when we acknowledge Him as Savior and Lord, we become co-heirs with Him for eternity {Romans 8:17}.

How does this look in daily life?  How do we live out the example He has given us? 

We serve.  In our homes, in our churches, in our workplaces, in our communities, around the world.   Sometimes our service seems small – wiping babies’ faces or picking up toys for the hundredth time today.  But when we serve with a pure heart, no service is small.

We give.   In a world where top television shows celebrate hoarding and getting more and bigger, the life of one who gives stands out.    There are countless ways to give from providing a goat to family across the world to taking cookies to thank a police officer across the street … opportunities to give are limitless.   We are called, commanded, to be a people who give generously, sacrificially, willingly.

We tell.   Too many believers are afraid to share their faith.  But we have been given a spirit of power {2 Timothy 1:7} and we are called to share the gospel as we go {Matthew 28:19-20}.  Telling others about the ransom Christ paid for our sin should be a part of our daily conversation.   We must be unafraid to share the truth … we must tell.

Today, every day, will you live in the example of Christ and serve and give and tell?

Find Us on Facebook


Recent Posts

Archives