Curriculum of Service

Posted on July 10th, 2007 in Home School Newsletters by Timberdoodle

Service

Ideally, service is a proficiency you learned from toddlerhood onwards. Just as reading is a skill that some learn as toddlers and others at age 8, but there comes a time when, if a child cannot read, a panic button is and should be pushed. If a child reaches the end of the teen years and still is not service- minded, I would push the panic button and set aside all else to target this.

Beginning Curriculum

Hebrews 10:24 commands us to “consider how to stir up one another to love and good works.” That is the intent of this program. Instead of college and instead of career, you will be spending 40 hours a week in service. Understandably, this will not be intuitive to you. So initially, your acts of benevolence will be assigned to you. Then, when you can joyfully, enthusiastically, and thoroughly complete each task assigned, you will be ready for stage two.

Phase Two

This intermediate phase works to help you become more astute in seeing needs in others. After every social encounter you will be asked to summarize needs you heard or saw expressed. This will range from the spoken yearnings of the widow to have help in her garden to the harried homeschooler who lacks adequate time to tutor her child in math. You will be taught to analyze the spoken and unspoken messages and then to formulate the scheduling of your acts of service. When you have mastered this, you will be ready for the final exam.

Final Exam

Unlike most finals, this particular exam will take a number of weeks to complete. What will be examined will be your ability to see a need and respond spontaneously. Here is what it will look like. You will see a family struggling to unload young children and their paraphernalia at church and you will jump in to offer to carry a diaper bag and toddler. At a community meal, you will be the one setting and clearing the table while others visit. At the store you will be the one scrambling to pick up the spilled pennies of the elderly or pushing the cart for the disabled. When you see your neighbor mowing his lawn, it will be you sweeping the excess grass off his walk.

Service for you may never seem natural. Even ardent worshippers of God struggle in this area. Remember when you learned to ride a bike? Balancing on that wobbly 2-wheeled knee-scraping machine was hardly natural. For some children, the process took an afternoon, for others, weeks. But eventually, most learned and what was once unnatural and awkward is now intuitive. It is our hope that service will become that for each and every one of you. And knowing that true service is not intuitive for any one of us may we fix our hope on Christ who works through us with His energy, who works for (serves) those who wait for Him, and who is our Savior, correcting and forgiving us when we fail.

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Seeking Service, an open letter

Posted on July 10th, 2007 in Home School Newsletters by Timberdoodle

An open letter to a number of relatives and family friends…

Dear collegiate seeker,College grads

When we spoke with your parents recently, they told us of your plans to attend college this fall. We wish we could be as happy about the decision as you are. College may be appropriate for some adults, but we see more pertinent needs in your life than additional formal education.

In the many years we have fellowshipped with your family we have seen no evidence in you of a servant’s heart, despite the fact that you see it abundantly displayed in the lives of your parents. While the world values academic success and is loath to engage in acts of service, your unwillingness to serve indicates a lack of maturity. College, with all its emphases on freedom, fun, and self-fulfillment will not produce this wisdom. Despite the fact that adults who have never learned to sacrificially serve may attain employment, even marry and raise a family, their self-serving, self-centered lives lead to a narcissistic existence.

[While service is never a means of salvation, as we are saved by grace and not by works; it is certainly a sign of salvation. So why is this a common weak spot in the Christian church? The New Testament is replete with ‘one another’ verses, one significant verse is found in Galatians, “through love serve one another”. Service can take many forms. It can be the paint on the hands, mud on the knees variety, or it can be an invitation to dinner. Regardless of the form, service means giving up what you want and doing what others need. It is rarely glamorous, often involves sacrifices of time and treasures, and is frequently goes unnoticed. And we hate that, especially the unnoticed part. So while we seek our own glory, the task of service is ignored.]

In the ideal world, your passion for God’s glory and His pleasure would be motivation aplenty to continuously be in some sort of service. However, at this time, that does not appear to be the case. Still, were the improbable to happen and you were to become our child you would find that we take seriously the teaching of Proverbs, “The hand of the diligent will rule, while the slothful will be put to forced labor.” Since you have not, as yet, learned to serve diligently, instead of college, we would be investing in a unique, individualized course of instruction.

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