Our church recently broke bread with each other.
When I say “broke bread,” I mean we literally ate a brunch of coffee cakes, lemon squares, blueberry muffins and more.
It wasn’t a special event… a women’s tea party… a men’s breakfast… or a guest reception.
It was how we spent the majority of that particular weekend’s services. We just hung out with each other and ate delicious baked goods.
When I did get up and speak, I mentioned that I’d be sharing a shorter message since we’d been doing this incredibly biblical thing called “breaking bread.” According to Acts 2:42-47, hanging out and eating together was something that the early church did on a regular basis. In fact, it’s listed in that passage right next to prayer.
Did you catch that? Eating together with a purpose is as spiritual as prayer.
I went on to share that the reason we did this is because no matter how much we talk about the value of community, sometimes we need to force it to happen. Otherwise we’ll feel so great with our good intentions that we never actually do it.
Serving often has the same dynamics.
John Ortberg once challenged that you should imagine Jesus is standing in front of you and says, “I want you… you. I want you to serve the needs of others around you. I want you to share with the whole world about who I am as you make disciples of all the nations, teaching them to obey everything I’ve commanded. I’m asking you to do this.”
That concept resonates with me more than when I read that command in Matthew 28.
Because Jesus has said that to you and I. Because you and I are the light of the world and the salt of the earth.
Because you and I are “the one” that God calls to serve.
And so are the students you serve.
It is our tendency to talk about things like serving. Recent movements like “The Church Has Left The Building” have been forcing churches to get out there and serve for a weekend service instead of just agree it’s a good idea.
Maybe it’s time to take a look at your teaching calendar and doing something with your students that you planned on just inspiring them to do.
What do you think?
What could you serve up?