Love Others

In order to grow we need regular exercise

6. Enjoying Service

How have you served in the past? Tell your Growth Coach a time you’ve served someone else. Ask them to share a story about their experience serving others.

Training

Three ways serving can grow you

1. Serving directly grows our faith.

Watching God work in someone else’s life increases our faith. In John 2:1-11, Jesus performs His first miracle at a wedding in Cana by turning the water into wine. Other than Mary, Jesus’ mother, only the servers at the wedding witnessed this miracle. The wedding attendees received the benefit of the new wine, and the wedding party saved face because of the miracle, but it was the servers who had the first opportunity to witness Jesus’ power. Serving allows us to experience His power firsthand and that naturally produces faith in us.

2. Serving helps us see and experience who we’re meant to grow into.

“… we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do”… “we’re all moving rhythmically and easily with each other, efficient and graceful in response to God’s Son, fully mature adults, fully developed within and without, fully alive like Christ”
(Ephesians 4:7-13, MSG)

God also uses our serving, and those we serve with, to reveal our gifts to us. 1 Peter 4:10says, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” When we are operating in our gifting to serve God and others, we experience the kind of joy we were made for!

3. Serving requires obedience and redirects our focus to Jesus.

The simplest way to follow Jesus is by doing what He did. In Matthew 20:28, Jesus tells us He came to serve, not be served. By being obedient to follow Jesus in this way, we get to know Him on a new level because we experience firsthand His love for others. When we begin to care for and serve others, God redirects our focus.

Tool

Think about the people of peace in your life. (Luke 10:5-9) These are the ones who want to serve you. If you can’t think of any, think about the ones who need to know Jesus. Then remember to help them and let them help you. Maybe together you can serve somewhere in the community. There are a lot of volunteer opportunities when you take the time to look for them.