The Importance of Service in Shaping Families

Wise parents and church leaders have been discovering that children and youth who grow up involved in hands-on service and ministry opportunities stand a better chance of sticking with the church for the long haul.

Church/religious activities begin to mean something in every day life. In this Lenten season, many persons make an effort not only to "give up something" for Lent but to "take up something"-to get involved in a cause or service activity.

I was in Chicago recently and vividly recalled the weekend my dear Aunt Susie (now deceased) took my sisters and me there. We stayed at a place called the Gospel League Home, a place that tried to help homeless women and children get back on their feet.

Talk about a mission weekend in the city. This was before youth groups went on formal or organized mission trips everywhere. Susie was her own one-woman mission agency. Not only did she organize, chaperone and probably fund this short term mission experience for us, she spent most of her summers traveling to numerous places to teach summer Bible school: the remote, under-populated areas of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan; the mountains of Kentucky or southern Indiana, the streets of inner city Chicago or Indianapolis. She would recruit anyone (including me) to go with her and teach Bible school for a week or two.

But Susie was far from being my only impetus towards thinking of the needs of others in service or mission ventures. On family vacations, Dad made sure we would visit whatever mission church there happened to be wherever we were. One time we visited a church voluntary service household in Hannibal, Missouri where we stayed with the young people who had committed 1-2 years of working as volunteers in that city. It made a favorable impression on my young mind: wouldn't it be fun to live in a household of young adults? Eventually I took advantage of that opportunity as a volunteer for a year in Kentucky.

I say all this not to brag on my relatives or myself, but to emphasize the value of being an example when it comes to seeing that our children and their children grow up with a mindset towards helping others. The best service opportunities probably happen locally, in our own backyards, because there we already know the culture and the problems. Our congregations need to organize ways for whole families to be involved in local mission/service efforts.

Short term mission experiences can be structured and wrapped around study and learning components to reduce the us/them mentality, to stress the reciprocal nature of all service (what am I receiving from these people who are gracious enough to allow me to walk along side them for a short time?), and how could we maybe sponsor or invite people from the other location to come and minister among us?

Exposure to another culture and another way of life, whether here or abroad is a vital part of training and educating all our children-both urban and rural. Together we can all do our little part and together they add up to something bigger. For information on church-related service opportunities, check this web site: www.mbm.org

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Submitted by Melodie Davis from her weekly column ANOTHER WAY www.thirdway.com