Q&A: How Does Serving Mesh with Discipleship?
Q:
Where should “serving” fit into a church’s overall discipleship strategy? Is it reasonable to set up serving as a goal for all members and then accept abysmal failure without acknowledging that a main tenant of the church is being disregarded?
[from an anonymous blog reader]
A:
First, let me get this out of my system: as far as annual “state of the church” sermons go, “Accept Abysmal Failure” seems like a title pastors should stay away from.
Okay, good. Now I can move on.
I think that it’s entirely reasonable to set up serving as a goal for all members (but not for the reasons you might think).
Here are four reasons why:
1. “Servant” is one of the identities of a disciple.
Jesus himself said that he did not come to be served, but to be a servant to others. (Mark 10:45) It makes sense, then, that his followers would also be servants.
For the past few years, our church has talked about the five identities of a disciple: followers of Jesus are growing deeper as worshipers, family members, servants, stewards, and witnesses. “Growing deeper” is key, because…
2. The life of a disciple is one of continuous growth.
In the Christian life, we don’t hit the finish line as soon as we’ve started. Most senior saints nearing their earthly death would be the first to confess that decades of faithfully following Jesus has simply taught them they have a long way to go.
So we should give some grace – both to ourselves and those whom we disciple – when some in the congregation are not actively serving. I’m confident there are those who are not actively giving or actively witnessing. That usually doesn’t mean we write them off as a disciple. It means that growth is still possible. But sometimes their growth (and ours) is easier than we think…
3. Think baby steps, not giant leaps.
In their excellent book Building Spiritual Habits in the Home, my friends Chris Pappalardo and Clayton Greene talk about the power of tiny goals on the way to achieving what we’re really after. They say “…when we’re doing something new, we have to do our minds a favor and keep it small. Otherwise we get excited at the beginning, sprinting out far faster than we can maintain. And our excited beginning only lasts a few days.”
And so it goes for volunteers. Rather than bemoan the fact that 100% of our church is failing to serve two hours each weekend, what if we made it a goal to increase our volunteer engagement by 1% this month? Or encourage a potential volunteer to try one opportunity with a start and end date that happens within the same morning?
4. Give grace as you (and they) grow.
I’m re-hammering point #2 for a reason: we need to remind ourselves – and those we lead – of the grace of God. Martin Luther said “to progress is always to begin again.” Eugene Peterson talks about “a long obedience in the same direction” (ironically enough, a phrase he swiped from Friedrich Nietzsche, the God-is-dead-and-life-is-meaningless guy).
You’re not always going to have all the volunteers you need. You’re not always going to have 100% engagement from 100% of your congregation. Neither are you, church staff member, always going to be 100% obedient to 100% of the Bible.
When we realize that all of our efforts are one big abysmal failure, that’s where our striving ends and the grace of Jesus overtakes us. Let’s lead from there, follow from there, and point our entire church not to what they can do for God, but what God has already graciously done for us. That may not turn everyone into a servant overnight, but it’ll root them far better than any recruitment campaign ever will.
