As we move through how to grow, I promise you the last two concepts will sound weird. Obviously, you can understand how praying and reading your bible will help you grow. It's even a bit intuitive that when you get into a community group you will grow.
But the next two we talk about might make you think you won't grow because they're focused on what you give, not what you get.
In our culture, I wonder if we thinking of growing and getting as inherently linked. We grow when we get – get fed, get built into, get nurtured, get cared for. But Jesus taught a radically different concept. We get when we give. He laid it on the line when he said whoever wants to save their life will lose it, and whoever loses his or her life for Jesus' sake will find it.
Today, I want to challenge you to serve. Between our campuses, we have several hundred adults who attend regularly but aren't serving. To be truthful, we don't actually need two hundred more volunteers to meet our immediate needs (we need maybe several dozen on each campus to meet our immediate vacancies). But if two hundred people stepped up to serve, our ministry would
expand into thriving and serving the community and each other in
incredible ways. Trust we, we have plans beyond what we are currently doing!
As your pastor, I can tell you that one of the best ways to grow spiritually is to serve someone else. When we push beyond our own needs, cease consuming, and begin giving, we grow. If you think back on your life, almost certainly you had somebody build into you and give to you without expecting return (a parent, a teacher, a church worker, a friend). And if you asked them how that was for them, they'd tell you they'd do it again in a heartbeat because it made them feel great. In giving, you receive. In giving, you grow.
Connexus is a great place to serve, build relationships and build into each other. You can serve in so many ways: helping to set up and pack away our environments on weekends, serving as a small group leader for kids or adults, greeting people as part of the host team, even helping out in the office mid week.
If you're not serving, you can participate in Test Drive right now (you'll hear about it again Sunday) to help you ‘test drive' serving in one of our environments at Connexus. For more information or to sign up to serve, email our office manager, Julia Achilles, at [email protected] or call her Julia at 705.721.9090. She'll help you get plugged in today.
If you are serving…any stories about how serving has helped you grow?