A Father's Legacy
Fathers Day has always been a favorite holiday of mine because I was privileged to have had a wonderful daddy who made it easy for me to understand God’s love for his children. He was a great role model who taught me what it looks like to love and serve God. Daddy understood that it was his responsibility to live the words of Proverbs 22:6, which in the King James version (which is how I memorized it many years ago) says,
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
These days I prefer the way The Passion Translation presents it:
“Dedicate your children to God and point them in the way that they should go, and the values they’ve learned from you will be with them for life.”
Isn’t this the primary responsibility of parents? We must teach and train the next generation to understand that we are created to love, worship, and serve God. Our words are important, but our example is far more impactful. Children watch what we do. They imitate their parents. They understand what is important by what they see their parents spending time and effort doing.
In so many ways, the little children lead us.
Children are naturally inclined to want to help. We need to be careful to not squash that innate desire to help, but rather, model, praise, and reinforce the desire to be a servant. In this way, they are imitating Jesus. Even though he was God, he made himself a servant and told us that he who wants to be great in His Kingdom must be a servant.
We serve God by loving and serving others.
When we serve our family, our neighbors, the needy and poor in spirit, and among others, our church family, we are serving God. I remember as a child listening to my Sunday School teacher explain that doing things for others was the same as doing things for Jesus. Many decades have passed since those days, but the truth of that statement remains.
Serving others isn’t popular in our culture. Even within the Church body -the collective body of all believers- it is becoming less common to see people serving as volunteers in their local church. Most of the volunteering is done by a very small percentage of the whole congregation. A lot of reasons are given: not enough time, I give money instead, I don’t have any skills, my children are too young, my children are too old, yada yada yada. But the end result is that people are missing out on an opportunity to experience joy.
Yes, you heard that correctly- missing out on joy.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. – Ephesians 2:10
When we do what we were made to do, we are filled with joy. If we neglect what we are made to do, we are left unfulfilled. Every church, from the smallest to the largest, needs volunteers to keep the building and grounds looking beautiful, to represent the church in the community, to teach, to preach, to cook, to build, to create, to write, to disciple, to witness and testify, and a list a mile long of other things that are required to build and maintain a healthy, thriving church that is a living testimony of God’s love to their community.
God invites us to partner with Him.
God does not need our help. He allows us to help and partner with him in what he wants to accomplish because he knows it will bring us joy. Our family- yes- our Neighborhood Church of Chico, needs more volunteers. Some ways that volunteers can serve are:
- Be a Greeter at our worship services.
- Praying with people after worship services and/or taking part in prayer services.
- Assisting the children’s ministry teachers.
- Helping in the youth ministry.
- Help with special tasks such as moving and watering our Dome plants.
- Answer phone calls and take messages.
- Be part of other service committees, such as funeral hosting, benevolence, hospital visitation, writing cards, special events, and probably many things I can’t remember or even know about.
Listen to the announcements and read the Skinny to hear about opportunities to serve. Many times there will be volunteer sign-up lists in the lobby after services. You can also email the church at info@ncchico.org to ask about volunteering.
As a volunteer myself, I can testify to the joy that serving my church family brings to me. I can testify to the joy of feeling the “oneness” with Jesus, knowing that everything I do out of love for His church is a love connection with him, and he shows his affection and appreciation to me by giving me an abundance of joy!
We’ve just celebrated Father's Day. What better way to honor your Heavenly Father than to serve His family!
A note from Pastor Andrew:
Sara Cain is my Administrative Assistant. If her words touched your heart and you would like to volunteer to specifically help take care of the plants in the dome, you can contact her directly to sign up or ask for more information at saracain@ncchico.org and 530.570.3485 to call or text.
I look forward to seeing all of you who choose to worship with us in the Dome this Sunday at either 9:00 a.m. or 11:00 a.m.
You can also live stream our 11:00 a.m. service on Facebook and YouTube.
If you missed last Sunday's message "Lessons from Three Kings", Week 24: "The Kindness of a Father", click here.
Need encouragement? You can receive a word of encouragement each day. Text the word Encourage to 530.296.3689. You will be added to the list to receive an encouraging scripture or quote from me each day that is sent right to your phone.
Leaders (and potential leaders): you can also text Lead to 530.296.3689 to be on the list to receive a thought, quote, or a challenge from me daily (or most days) regarding leadership.
