Serve Like Christ

Some years back, I went on a mission trip to southern Italy. We were participating in a nine night evangelistic festival in conjunction with two local churches. The festival ran from about 5-10 pm and thousands of people attended each night. 

This was a big commitment for the host churches as they needed more than 100 volunteers each night to make the festival happen. It’s easy to give up nine nights when you’ve put life on hold by taking time off work and traveled to another country, but the church members had no such luxury. They still had the responsibilities of taking care of their children, homes, jobs, and so on. 

One of the first days we were there, we saw one of the church members in our hotel. She was one of the maids! As we talked, we learned that the presence of our large group was requiring her to work more than usual—which she was happy to do. However, she was hoping to still be off in time to make it to the festival to volunteer and to accompany unsaved friends she had invited. 

After the conversation, our team leader reminded the whole team of how important it would be to keep our hotel rooms clean and orderly. The easier we could make her job, the more likely it would be that she could get to the festival at night and volunteer at HER church’s ministry.   

Despite all our talk about being servants prior to the trip, I hadn’t anticipated that one of the primary ways to serve was to keep my room clean. After all, the last thing I wanted to do was to cause this sweet lady to resent our presence because it kept her from being able to serve. 

As I reflect on the nature of service, I think we often romanticize terms like “servant leadership” or simply talk about “serving like Christ.” However, service is usually anything but glorious to us. When we think of serving like Jesus we might want to imagine the long hours teaching, the crowds pressing in hoping to be healed, or the stormy boat rides. Instead, we probably ought to think about Jesus washing stinky, sweaty feet, interacting with a disfigured and smelly man with leprosy, and even subjecting himself to torture and death. 

I’ve learned that while serving others can bring fulfillment, it’s rarely glorious. It’s usually unnoticed, thankless, and even unpleasant. Service usually looks like taking the back seat, letting others eat first, or leaving a place cleaner than you found it. 

Pray and Journal—Finish your time today by asking God for three things:

1. The desire to serve;
2. The ability to see opportunities to serve; and
3. The grace to humbly and joyfully serve.