Church, I have a question for you. Are you serving? More specifically, are you serving in and through Happy Valley Baptist Church? If you are, great! If you’re not, can I ask why? I’m not going to bore you with all the reasons we give ourselves not to serve, instead I want to give you encouragement on why you should be.
To see why we should serve in the church, we need look no further than the Bible. 1 Corinthians 12:12-27 talks about the body, or church, having many parts, or members. All the members work in unison to have a properly working body. A hand cannot pump blood like the heart, an ear cannot smell like a nose does, a leg cannot bend without the knee, and so on. Also, the body could not function at its best if parts were missing or replaced with other parts. Imagine if we had eyes in place of our feet or, even better, if we had feet in place of our eyes. I know that these illustrations are funny to consider, but I think that the picture they paint gets the point across well. All parts are unique but equally important in the proper, ideal, function of the body.
Now I know that you’re likely agreeing that it all makes sense but you might be wondering, ‘where do I even start serving?’ Well I was there once, so let me share with you my story of serving and what I learned from it.
- Be willing to say yes. The first time I served in the church was as a Sunday school preschool aide. My wife started leading a class and asked if I would help her. I said yes and so started my journey of serving.
- Look for opportunities to serve. The first time I approached church staff about serving was to lead a preschool choir. At the time, we had a preschool choir and the leader was stepping down. Nobody was volunteering for the position and since this was something I really thought would be beneficial to keep going within the church, I volunteered.
- Pray about how God might want you to serve and then follow His leading. As I prayed about serving, I really felt that God was leading me to serve in a way that would be an example to my kids in how to serve. This led me to AWANA. Since my kids were already participating, I thought I could serve in AWANA as a visible example to my kids of serving within the church. My time in that ministry looked like serving in a number of roles: game time, listener, preschool helper, etc. The position mattered less than just being there, willing to serve.
- Don’t be afraid to leave or move positions. Over the years, I’ve served in several areas in the church: preschool aide and choir director, several roles in AWANA, youth leader, chaperone of many kid and youth trips, men’s events, as a Deacon, and now as an Elder. This doesn’t mean that all those moves and changes were easy. Some were more challenging than others but each had their unique rewards and blessings, and most only lasted for a season. It’s ok to serve in a role for a time and step away to do something else.
- Again, be willing to say yes. This is not to say that you need to say yes to all opportunities. Some opportunities are not feasible or even right for you. However, if you always start with “NO”, how will you ever say “YES”? I had a previous pastor give me what I consider to be a huge compliment; he told me that if he ever needed a volunteer in the church he knew that he could almost give my name without even asking because he already knew what my answer would be: “YES!”.
My hope is that reading this would be an encouragement for those of you that aren’t serving to jump in with both feet and serve. Be willing to say yes. Look for opportunities to serve. Pray about how God might want you to serve and then follow that leading. Don’t be afraid to move positions or try different things. Again, perhaps most importantly, BE WILLING TO SAY YES!