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“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:45 ESV)
With the holidays coming many families are finding themselves quite busy already-I know our calendar is really getting full (all good things-all good things.) Baking, crafts, and gift buying are all soon upon us, if not already started. But instead of letting all of the consumerism and busyness consume us and our time, I want to be intentional about turning our eyes off of ourselves and our entertainment, and instead look to serve others. And that all starts at home by talking about the fact that Jesus came to serve us (see verse above).
We try to make serving a regular part of our lives and involve our kids as much as possible. We have served as a family on the greeting team, where kids can stand with you and help you open the door and welcome people at church. We regularly cook and deliver meals to people as they welcome a new baby or recover from an injury. Even if it’s only watching mama cook and joining me in the car ride, they are participating and learning what it looks like to serve others.
Kids, even little ones, CAN serve, we just have to be willing to include them and give them age appropriate tasks to participate in with us. Some other serving opportunities we have done as a family include serving at a sort of local food pantry, and helping out with a local ministry called Hand2Hand, which provides a food service to kids in schools whose families are in a season of food insecurity. Kids can participate in packing snack bags and meals that can go home with kids to help stretch through the weekend. In both these activities our, at the tie, two year old had fun pushing carts around and putting snacks into bags-and of course saying hi to everyone.
We are eagerly looking ahead to serving this fall as a family in our community, and we encourage you to do the same. Don’t know where to serve? Try seeing what your church is already involved with, if you’re not part of a church, call a local one or check out their website to find out what they’re doing and how you could get involved! Another place to start is Feeding America. You can go directly to their website here, and find both food banks local to you, if that is a need for your family, and volunteer opportunities to serve.
Looking for other types of opportunities in your area to check out? You can use VolunteerMatch to look up specific serving opportunities in your area just by typing in your zip code or city. In our area right now there are serving opportunities to bring service pets to visit people, read with young kids, host foreign exchange students, be a prayer warrior, teach music, and more. God has uniquely equipped each of us, and planned the good works for us to do (Ephesians 2:10 ESV), so grab your family and go serve together this November!
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Many links in this post are affiliate links. If you choose to use them I may make commission off of purchases, thanks for supporting our family if you do.
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