In Richard Foster’s classic book Celebration of Discipline, he lists service as one of the outward disciplines. It’s a discipline, something that we have to practice, something that we occasionally have to make ourselves do. Foster says, “In some ways we would prefer to hear Jesus’ call to deny father and mother, houses and land for the sake of the gospel than his word to wash feet. Radical self-denial gives the feel of adventure. If we forsake all, we even have the chance of glorious martyrdom. But in service we must experience the many little deaths of going beyond ourselves. Service banishes us to the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial.”[1]
This coming Monday, January 19 is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Schools are off, and many businesses are closed. An entire movement has sprung up in recent years to honor Dr. King’s legacy: the MLK Day of Service. People all over our country spend the day in service to others. What a holiday!
I want to encourage you to consider spending at least two hours of this day with members of your family—spouse, kids, grand kids, whoever’s nearby—serving other people. There are several opportunities to serve, but I’ll point to two.
- Volunteer to serve with our brothers and sisters at Cornerstone Baptist Church in South Dallas. There are always lots of great ways to support the amazing ministry of Cornerstone in the Fair Park community. If you’re interested in serving at Cornerstone, Pastor Chris Simmons has asked folks to show up at 10 am and call his cell phone on your way: 214-676-7315. (I know, I know, but he asked me to post his cell phone.)
- Join other Texas Baptists in packing nutritious rice/soy meals for those suffering from food shortages in West Africa. Learn more and sign up here.
If neither of these fits you, call your local homeless shelter or hospital or library or women’s shelter and ask how you and your family can serve. Make service to other people a spiritual practice this week. Try it for a couple of hours. You may find, as countless others have found, that in “the mundane, the ordinary, the trivial,” God is present and at work in ways you couldn’t dream. And let us know how it goes.
[1] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), 126-27.
The Jesus Way 