THIS IS A REPOST FROM LAST YEAR BUT I THOUGHT THAT IT WAS A GOODIE…ENJOY!
I often wonder why the church is not as effective in inner-city ministry; you know where all the rough patches of society live – just joking. I used to hear stories from people who did inner-city mission work, and how “rewarding” the work was and how the smiles on the peoples’ faces made it all worthwhile. But after the mission work was done, you didn’t see too many of “those” same people in the church serving with the people who served them. After further investigation, I discovered that most of the time mission groups came into certain areas supplying food, clothing, maintenance work, basic necessities, etc. after which they would leave out with a sense of accomplishment, saying we’ve really helped out (blessed) “those people” over there in the inner-city. One year later, not too much had changed with the people serving or being served and the cycle continued. We often look at people, that we would consider poor, and say that they need a change of attitude and poverty was a state of mind and if the mind changed the situation would change. Well that works both ways; servers need to have an attitude to serve as Christ did and they need to be transformed by the renovation of their minds so that they can prove what God’s perfect and pleasing will is for their lives, in that mission work they’re committed to (Romans 12:2). Take a look at this passage in Luke 17:7-10:
“Suppose one of you had a servant plowing or looking after the sheep. Would he say to the servant when he comes in from the field, ‘Come along now and sit down to eat?’ Would he not rather say, ‘Prepare my supper, get yourself ready and wait on me while I eat and drink; after that you may eat and drink?’ Would he thank the servant because he did what he was told to do? So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty.’”
Now there’s a lot in that, and we can’t tap into it all but for the sake of this blog I like to think that the servant referred to in this passage by Jesus, had to have a DELIGHT in his high position of service (James 1:9) that motivated his work towards his master. Did I say that, the master was the one who was being served and not the one serving? So it should be with us, that as we serve in whatever mission that we do, the people we serve are the master and we are the unprofitable servants that do the work out of pure love for the Master we serve. We don’t see the work as an accomplishment rather an opportunity to develop new relationships. That should get us out of looking at people as PROJECTS and start seeing them again as PEOPLE – just ones that we want to introduce to the Father!
If you’ve enjoyed this blog, join us as we serve our brothers and sisters through our outreach, mission ministry; The FRIDAY FREEZE! More than just a Popsicle and a prayer but powerful, potent relationships build.
