Sorry for not keeping in touch the last few weeks but I have had some serious computer problems. I recently received a new laptop, a Lenovo Think Pad, which I can highly recommend. The problem I encountered was in transferring all my documents to the new computer especially all my e-mails, personal contacts and saved documents.
Well it was a lot more complicated than I thought transferring contacts and saved e-mails from Microsoft Outlook to Gmail. Hopefully I will not have the same problem in the future. I even managed to lose several of my contacts during the transfer. If you know somebody that would like to receive this newsletter please mail me their email address.
Round about this time of the year the church gets rather busy with church board meetings and especially with the nominating committee. The role of the nominating committee is to help find mature individuals in the church who are willing to use their talents and gifts for service in the church.
You would be surprised how many people it takes to make a church run smoothly and fulfill the Great Commission to go make disciples, baptize them and teach people to obey everything that Jesus commanded us to do. The bigger the church the more volunteers are needed to make sure all the ministries in the church work.
Well, every year we face the same problem, the problem of busyness. Nobody seems to have the time to serve anymore. In fact people have the strangest excuses why they cannot serve in the church. I have found it to be true more and more in our secular society that when an opportunity for service presents itself, so often our first tendency is try and get out of it or delegate the responsibility to somebody else. To be honest with you I find myself doing the very same thing from time to time. To combat this tendency we must proactively eliminate our excuses.
There's an old saying that says, “You always find time to do the things you want to do.” I think if we are honest with ourselves we would admit that very often there are other “important things” that compete for our time. We would admit that serving in the church and in our communities are just not our first priorities. I personally know people that spend hours every week playing computer games or even following their favorite TV shows. The bottom line is that many of our excuses are manufactured around misplaced priorities and poor decision-making.
It's amazing what happens to our time when we make something a priority.
We need to remember that meaningful, effective service is not always easy. Yet, serving is still the primary method God uses to make us more Christ-like. When we serve people our lives are being transformed into the likeness of Jesus. Our characters are being tested and molded to become more like Jesus and the fruits of the spirit are grown in our lives.
We need to remember that we are never more like Jesus than when we serve. So, let’s stop making excuses all the time when it comes to serving one another.
Challenge:
Why not start small this week. See a need and meet it. That’s the simplest advice for serving and success. Remember, serving other people with the right motive is never small to God!
God bless
Berny