Service and Discipleship

Recently, Mt. Calvary took the opportunity to provide a meal for a group of young adults in town for a servant event.  While we were serving them dinner, we had a chance to talk with them. The great thing about young adults is that they are so excited and they believe they can do anything. Especially when you are talking to young adults in ministry, not only do they have the energy to believe they can do anything, they have Jesus behind them and so that only ups the ante. One of the young adults there that night was passionate about social ministry, specifically homeless ministry. She was talking about the ways she was involved in this ministry and all the opportunities there are to help homeless people.

Tracy and I reflected on her energy. It is great to see people like that because you remember how you were when you were their age. It is certainly something that lasts for a season, and then in life and ministry, you realize the road of service and discipleship is long. Not only that, but at times when our world is less receptive to the church, the road comes with many challenges as we try to serve and be a disciple in this world. 

This is a great challenge – continually watching as things change time and time again. We find that we need to grow and change how to execute service and discipleship to an ever-changing world. This is why this value (service & discipleship) is the most challenging of all the values we’ve covered (welcoming, caring, & intentional relationships).

Have you been surprised at how the book of Leviticus has been able to connect with us even though we are in a much different time? It seems to be a book full of rules and regulations that don’t to relate to us as God calls the Israelites to come back to His image. Yet, every week we find that God has that same call out to us – to return to His image. God’s Word in Leviticus is teaching us over and over again that we must look into the context of our changing world and discover how to share God’s unchanging message.

This week I was eating lunch with the CECE staff as they celebrated one of the teacher’s birthdays. It is a Mt. Calvary preschool tradition that they bring in the favorite dessert of the birthday girl to share. This time the favorite dessert was pie, so they had a couple varieties of Tippin’s pies. Oh, Tippin’s. I was immediately taken back to my childhood when I would go to Tippin’s with my grandparents. This is a good example of my point. Today, Tippin’s is all about pies. They have become the specialty of the grocery stores that carry them.  Long gone are the days where it was a family restaurant. They’ve had to change with the times. My kids won’t ever experience Shoney’s, Tippin’s, Perkins, Country Kitchen etc. the way I did.

We could take time to be sad about all of the changes that have happened, or we could acknowledge that this world looks different and move on. Believe it or not, we sometimes feel sad about the church and how it used to look different. Yet now, in our season of service and discipleship, we are called to be more like Tippin’s and find our specialty with the gifts and values that stand strong in our church. That is why we have this series on values, which brings us back to look at our values and who we are as a church body. Now we ask ourselves, how do we use our gifts and values in this changing world?