Service

We've been learning all about service this month. When we asked a few children in our Preschool class what they thought service means, they said...

"It's when you go to a restaurant and people give you food."

"It's when you're hungry and someone gives you food."

"It's when you go to God."

So in the minds of our 4-5 year olds, service is one of two things: being a waiter/waitress, and going to church.

Funny as it is, there's truth in that. On one level, going to church is also called the Sunday service. So service is when we go to God. On another level, we can go to God in service. We can serve God. How? Our kids would say: by praying, by reading your Bible, by going to church, and by bringing our friends to church. Yes on all counts. But let's dig deeper.

Let's look at service as being a waiter/waitress. Service is serving God, but one of the best ways we can serve God is by serving others. That's the ding-ding-ding answer we wanted to teach our children about service. And praise God they got it. When asked how they can serve others, we received many answers: give money to mission, help my little brother put on his clothes, collect clothes for the poor, give canned food to the homeless, etc.

Unfortunately for most of us, we know what service is but we don't take the next step: action. We have ideas on how to serve others, but we don't act on those ideas. It's time to get up and do something. And yes, it starts with us, because the best way for our children to learn about service is by seeing us serve others.