In the process of seeking your area of servanthood, strive to render service in hidden ways. A number of years ago, I chaired the planning committee for a church convention. It involved 200 churches. It turned out to be an extraordinary event. People left excited. The positive feedback was almost un...

Trial, error, and success are the steps to finding your unique brand of servanthood. While following Jesus Christ always means becoming more Christ-like, as well as being part of Christ’s community of faith, the Church, God never intended for any two Christians to be exactly alike. Paul writes, â€...

You can cultivate servanthood as a way of life. If you’ve gotten this far in these readings, you’ve become aware of a paradox. A paradox, according to one dictionary, is a “seemingly contradictory statement that may nonetheless be true: [for example:] the paradox that standing is more tiring t...

Servants serve on purpose. I once met some remarkable high school seniors. The local chapter of The Ohio State University alumni group to which I belonged in my former community annually gives a scholarship to an area freshman heading to OSU. The job of a committee on which I served was to interview...

Servants are interruptible. Imagine that just before you leave for a long-planned vacation, the telephone rings. It’s your neighbor. He and his wife need to run to the hospital, where his mother has just been taken unexpectedly. They wonder if you can look after the kids for awhile. For a moment, ...

Servanthood is the response of a grateful person. On entering a village between Samaria and His home country of Judea one day, Jesus was met by ten lepers, all begging for Jesus’ pity. In those days, leprosy was seen as a curse. The leprous person was “unclean.� Because of that, the leper coul...

There’s a difference between servanthood and slavery. In the Greek of the New Testament, there are two main root words for servanthood. Doulos and diakonos can both be translated as slave or minister, as well as servant. But there’s a marked difference between the service offered by one who feel...

Servanthood moves us beyond ourselves. The classic line of Bette Midler in the movie, Beaches , probably displays our unspoken attitudes. “Enough about me,� Midler says, “what do you think about me?� Experts on childhood development tell us that we come into this world deeply mired in oursel...

[This was shared during midweek Lenten worship with the people of Saint Matthew Lutheran Church in Logan, Ohio, earlier this evening. It was given as part of our 40-Days to Servanthood emphasis.] Mark 1:9-15 I was fired from a job once. It happened about a year before I started seminary. But before ...

Servanthood begins in a relationship with Jesus Christ. In light of that, I have a question for you: How is your relationship with Jesus Christ? Please don’t misunderstand. Your involvement in our congregation is wonderful. It’s good that you’ve been baptized. Through Baptism, God has claimed ...