Raising the Heart of a Servant

When my boys were in elementary school, we helped serve in the summer lunch program at Stonebriar Community Church. We packed the lunches, drove to a local Frisco school, and helped hand the lunches to kids as they walked outside the building. I remember the look on my oldest son’s face when he stood next to someone his age and handed him a meal. Suddenly in that moment, a new awareness became very real to him and honestly for me too. From that point on, I made it a goal to help my kids find meaningful opportunities to serve together as a family.

“For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve.”

Mark 10:45

Jesus was the perfect model of how to serve others. In Courtney DeFeo’s book, “In This House We Will Giggle,” she defines service as “using our hands, feet, and heart to honor God and love others.” She says, “we are God’s plan to meet the needs of people.” We have the honor and privilege of serving others in Jesus’ name and the responsibility of teaching our children from a very young age to do the same.

Here are a few ideas I came up with to help you get started. I would encourage you that not everything needs to be big and grandiose. Just be faithful.

“But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says.”

James 1:22

Start at home.

I found for my family that serving others needed to start at home. It is one thing to go out and serve people you don’t know. But to serve your annoying little brother who keeps breaking your things is entirely different. Have everyone draw names, and then each day, for an entire week, they will do something to serve the family member whose name they drew. They can write a card saying how much they love them, they can do one of their chores . . . the list could go on and on. (Even better if they can keep it a secret who they are helping for the whole week.) Remember that to create a servant’s heart, you do not want to do it for the accolades and applause—you want them to do it because they care for the other person.At the end of the week, come together and talk about how they felt, how they chose to serve, and why.

Model the behavior.

Do your children see you and your spouse serving? Our children are watching to see if our hearts and our hands are working together. If you have a friend who is sick and needs a meal, include your kids in the process. Have them make a card for the friend, let them help prepare the meal, and then take them with you when you go deliver it and pray for the friend in need. Children will follow the example you set. If they see you serving others, they will likely want to follow.

Look for opportunities.

In a book by author Deborah Spaide, she says, “parents do their children a disservice by sheltering them too much from the world’s suffering.” As parents, it is hard to let your children see the harshness of the world. But in the end, it allows them to have eyes that see others and hearts filled with empathy, compassion, and gratitude. Have your children do extra chores around the house to raise money to buy the crayons for the school supply drive. Have your children go shopping with you to buy presents for an Operation Christmas Child box. Have a lemonade stand to buy food for the food pantry. Together adopt a child from Compassion International and pray for that child together as a family. It will mean more if they have skin in the game.

Accept help.

Some people have great hearts for serving but don’t want to accept help from others. This inadvertently teaches your child pride. And we all know that our kids do not need any help in being more prideful. Graciously allow others to help you.

Encourage the joy.

Serving others can bring such joy. It can fill you up, remind you to be thankful for the many blessings we have, and put your focus outward rather than inward. It truly is better to give than receive. Allow your children to see the joy. Sometimes serving others requires sacrifice and hard work, but don’t stop there! Follow it through to get to the joy and thankfulness that we get when we put our focus where God wants us to.

Author

  • Kristin Langford and family

    Kristin Langford is the Ministry Leader for Early Childhood Ministry at Stonebriar Community Church. She is responsible for loving on kids birth through kindergarten and their parents. She has a passion for helping moms navigate the sometimes stressful waters of parenting preschool-age children and meeting all the other expectations in their lives. She and her high school sweetheart, Jay, have been married for twenty-six years and have three teenage and young adult sons, and they recently added two teenage girls to make them a party of seven.

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