Sunday afternoon I sat on the stoop of my front porch enjoying a humid-free 80-degree West Michigan afternoon after a long morning of responsibilities at my church. It was a good morning, but I needed a mid-afternoon reflective break.
As I was sitting there enjoying the day and watching my 2 year old terrier-boxer-pug play, I looked over and noticed The Express, a free Grand Rapids weekend paper with tips from Dave Ramsey, local classifieds, some supermarket flyers, and a nice tasty grilled-chicken salad recipe. I’ll have to try that last one some day. We get this paper every weekend, but I rarely open that thing and usually complain how littery it is. This time I picked it up because an above-the-fold article caught my eye, titled “A Guide to Volunteering for the Time Strapped.”
Volunteering for the time strapped? “What a typically 21st-Century American newspaper article,” I thought.
I opened the paper to read the rest of the article only to confirm my suspicions. Here are 5 tips the authors recommend you use to “fit [volunteering] into a hectic schedule”:
1) Create volunteering benchmarks for yourself
2) Make a list of volunteer activities that do not require a commitment
3) Pre-book volunteer days that correspond with “free” days, such as Columbus Day or MLK Day
4) Consider micro-volunteering opportunities you can do online
5) Ask your company about its volunteer policy
Now I’m sure the authors meant well. But I have to wonder whether they titled their article of helpful volunteer tips for the time-strapped American correctly. Based on this list it seems like it should have been titled “How to Serve by Requiring the Least from Me.” It’s as if they assume you can actually give of your time without giving of yourself—without requiring something from you. Based on this list the bar is set so low as to require almost nothing of someone who wants to “volunteer”—in fact you can volunteer online, and with zero-to-no commitment!
Apparently they haven’t met Linda from First Congregational Church in Muskegon, MI.
Every Saturday for at least a decade, this church in downtown Muskegon hosts a free breakfast for anyone who needs it. I volunteered there along with a few others from my church a month ago. I must say I didn’t walk into the experience with the best of attitudes, which I mostly blamed on several reason—our free breakfast consisted of mushy over-salted eggs, a barely warm hashbrown stick, and barely toasted buttered white toast; it was super hot in the dishpit where I was volunteering, mostly because I didn’t get the memo to wear shorts; and I was giving up a Saturday a 40-min drive away from where I live.
But then I met George who introduced me to Linda.
Linda is a 70’s-ish volunteer who has served (aka: volunteered) for almost a decade. And in the almost-ten years she’s served these poor men and women and children breakfast every Saturday she has missed only 4 days.
Every Saturday. For 10 years. Except 4 Saturdays.
That’s something like 500 Saturdays.
I’d say that blows this list of tips completely out of the water. And it proves something that this article fails to grasp:
serving and volunteering requires something from us. Something that this list of volunteering tips does not.
It requires our time. Our energy. Our attention. Our vacation days. Our Saturdays. Our body. Our money. Serving requires any number of things of us.
And afterward, we should hurt. Our bodies or planner or wallet or weekend plan or whatever else we hold and declare to be mine should throb and ache and be lost in the act of stooping down, basin and towel in hand, to wash the feet of those around us.
While reading this article I was reminded of an event in the life of Jesus and His relationship with His disciples. John 13 describes this scene where, sometime before His death, Jesus laid down His outer clothes, took up a towel, and served His disciples by washing their feet. Foot-washing was a common practice, especially for a household host. And here is Jesus—the only one true God, Lord of all creation, eventual Savior and Rescuer of humanity. Almost naked, both knees planted in the dirt of some Judean home, grubby foot in hand.
You see this One who should have rightfully demanded to be served by every person on the planet didn’t come to be served—Jesus Christ, Lord and Messiah, came to serve.
And it cost Him something. That act of service hurt. No not this one—the half-naked, knees-planted, foot-washing act of service. The one this act anticipated—the one that resulted from Christ laying down His life, taking up the blood-soaked boards of execution, and serving the world through His sacrificial death in order to wash our bodies and cleans us from sin.
In John 13, Jesus said that He has provided us an example that we should follow. We are called to do as Jesus did for His disciples—lay down our lives, pick up our towel, and serve the world around us.
And it should cost us something. Serving and volunteering should hurt. Especially our FranklinCoveys.
He who has ears, let him hear.
So what’s your towel? How would it look in your world, this week, to lay down your planner, pick up your towel, and serve the world around you?
