You guys all know how I like to read books that challenge. The newest one I'm reading is The Outward Focused Life by Dave Workman, pastor of Vineyard Church in Cincinatti. The subtitle is "Becoming a Servant in a serve-me world." That says it all. It isn't a great novel or literature masterpiece. It is short vignettes about practical ways to be a servant; ways to show God's love in a practical way. Here is a quote "Here's one difference between religion and relationship with Jesus: religion can be calculated and measured; Jesus is extravagant."
There are numerous stories of people doing small, selfless service for others. For instance, pay for the car behind you in the fast food line and ask the cashier at the window to hand them a little card with your church's info,or maybe it just says "God loves you." There are stories of handing out free things to homeless people. It doesn't take an organization to do this, just do it yourself! So, here is what my Mother and sisters and I dreamed up while eating breakfast Friday. We are going to buy big boxes of diapers at Sam's and separate them into stacks of 30. We will tie them up with Christmas ribbon and place a little card on them that say something about how Jesus loves them. Then, we are going to park in the WIC(Women's Infants and Children govt aide) parking lot and hand them out. That's it, no strings, no gospel presentation with tracts---just people giving them a free gift and saying that Jesus loves them and so do we! I'm so stinkin excited I can barely stand it!!!!! I'll update you guys after it happens. We have big plans for next year's Black Friday madness. We are going to set up a table in Wal-Mart parking lot and give free hot chocolate and donuts to shoppers. We will have our church's connect card to hand out too. Yippeeee! How fun.
Now your turn. I challenge you to serve others in a practical way. Take a load of NEW(don't give away your old junk) hats and gloves to an intersection in the city and hand them out. After you've done so, email me or leave a comment to let me know what you did.
Merry Christmas!
He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God? Micah 6:8
Okay, I know we've never met but can I just say I love you!?!?! I love your ideas and thoughts on these kinds of things. We've been talking about all this in our small group-Romans 12. So, this year we are blessing another family in our small group by lavishing them with gifts for Christmas because they are going through a rough job patch (they have 7 beautiful children).....I cannot even tell you how excited we are to care for one another in this way...it is so beautiful to "do life" with others in God's family. I have a million ideas swirling in my head about things to do for those outside the church like you mentioned too! Christmas is such a wonderful reminder of that.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing! SunnyK (forum)