Top Ten Quotes: Servanthood as Worship

Church volunteer culture runs the gamut from inspirational to infuriating. If you lead volunteers, maybe you know what I mean. Inspirational, because watching a volunteer use their gifts is one of the most awe-inspiring things to see in ministry. Infuriating, because you know there’s so much more potential in the pews than is represented on ministry teams. I long for churches that are filled to the brim with grace-infused believers who know and utilize their gifts to serve others.

A few months ago a friend recommended Nate Palmer’s book Servanthood as Worship. I found it extremely helpful in regards to encouraging every member to find their particular ministry and understand their place in the kingdom.

Here are my top ten favorite quotes:

• What started out as a way to express my joy soon became, in my mind, a way to manage God. My service was like the volume knob on a car stereo – I could amplify God’s opinion of me by serving more.
• Serving in the church is not just the privilege of the few. It is the call of every Christian’s life.
• When biblical, gospel-centered service in Christ’s name is present at the center of a local church, it forms a brilliant nucleus radiating out into a dark world.
• From his heavenly throne, Jesus empowers our service through the Holy Spirit. He helps us serve so that we may glorify God and not ourselves. Jesus’ exaltation means we can serve like we were originally made to. Because of Christ’s exaltation, we can rest in his work and give him glory as we serve.
• God is calling us to serve despite our inconvenience and discomfort, because his top priority is the glory he will receive as our lives become more and more conformed to his image.
• When serving has become duty to me, that usually means God has become a duty as well.

• …biblical servanthood is a reaction to God, a response to a holy God’s forgiveness of our sins. We do not serve for salvation, but from salvation.
• …a Christian without some evidence of genuine biblical affection for other people is…a contradiction.
• We engrave people’s hearts with God’s love by earnestly seeking to love and serve them as Christ has done for us.
• Our service here anticipates our service there [in heaven]. Our service here approximates our service there. And our service here celebrates, in advance, the perfect expressions of love and service that we will perform and experience in eternity.

Order Servanthood as Worship.

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