At Shannon, service is an integral part of what we do. We purposely build opportunities for our students to serve. Occasionally someone will ask why this emphasis on service and so I thought I would write an answer. The short answer is that serving others is part of our calling as disciples of Jesus. Starting in Genesis 12,
“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”
Our blessings are not meant to be held on to but passed along. We love because we have been loved. We give because we have received gifts. We serve because we have been blessed. Our greatest example is that of Jesus who said of himself, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10.45)
Peter states it plainly, “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” (1 Peter 4.10)
At its core, service is about character development. Humanity is flawed and nowhere is this more evident than our intrinsic selfishness.
Any parent, or anyone who has worked with children, knows of the phase of development called the terrible twos. Cognitive scientists explain this phase as a result of children learning for the first time that other people are separate identities from themselves and as such, don’t always share the their wants and desires. Until this point, toddlers view their wants and desires as being universal. Now they have to recognize that this is not the case. How do they learn this? They test the boundaries. They look for areas where wants and desires conflict with those of someone else, and they test it repeatedly to identify the boundary.
In many regards this process continues the rest of our life. A perennial complaint of parents of teenagers is that they act as if they are the center of the universe. Service is the best way to help us breakout of this tendency. In serving others we recognize our blessedness. Service creates gratitude. Service creates compassion. Service creates character.
