We have several grade school children who love to help on Sunday mornings. Almost every Sunday one of these precious children will come up to me and ask if they can help with ushering or acolyting. When I say “yes,” their faces light up with eagerness and joy. When I say “no, we have what we need,” their faces become dejected; a frown and even sometimes a pout, will appear. These young ones love to serve. They have a heart that is willing and able to serve with love and eagerness.

Many times adults will come to me and ask if they can help with anything. The adults aren’t as cute as the children when I say “no everything is filled.” Mostly they just say “great” and move on into worship. Wouldn’t it be lovely if everyone had the heart of these servant children who so lovingly serve with their whole hearts. We would have people working out who would usher each Sunday or Wednesday. I can just see it… “you ushered last Sunday/Wednesday, I’ll usher this Sunday/Wednesday” or I can see our members scrambling to get to the parking lot vest to be the one outside helping our members get into worship safely. I can see families coming early to help with greeting as people come into worship. I can see joyful coffee hosts between worships pouring coffee with loving kindness.

I would love to see everyone in our congregation serving in some kind of worship and hospitality ministry. If each person would take on one ministry and commit to doing that once a month or every other, it wouldn’t be too much for just a few people . Let’s all work together to make a lot of work, very little. Choose when to serve on a consistent basis and then get it on your calendar. Committing to that volunteer ministry would be a loving way to serve God and others.

There is no better way to show our love for God and others than in serving each other in love. In Hebrews 6:10 it says, “God will not overlook your work and the love that you showed for his sake in serving the saints.” Committing ourselves to serving one another isn’t always easy, time gets away from us, but if we start putting serving on our calendar and reminders on our phones, we may be able to serve with love more often than if we don’t try at all.

Our confirmation small groups have been serving on Wednesday nights, doing all the worship serving, ushering, communion servers, reading, projection and setting up and taking down communion. These young people work together to make sure all areas are covered. Any small group could do this on a Sunday, doing ushering, greeting, and/or doing the parking lot ministry or signing up ahead of time serve as coffee hosts. The next time your group meets, talk about when your group can serve within our church. There are so many ways to serve within our church, not just on a Sunday, but throughout the week and month.

Since we are still in the new part of the year, I hope you will consider where and when you will serve. If you have any questions about serving within our church, talk to any of our staff and we can get you connected into serving.