Photo by Jeff Karpala
The hardest, most effective way to serve others is to… wait for it…
Serve others on THEIR terms
That’s it. It’s plastered all over the Bible. Marketers teach it in the secular world. And deep down in those dark, dangerous dungeons of our hearts, we know it. We know it because. . .
We want to be served that way too
We’re told to love our neighbor as ourselves, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the most effective way to serve others is also the most effective way to serve ourselves.
Think about it. When you serve yourself… oh, maybe you don’t do that. Hypothetically, if you were to serve yourself, how would you do it?
I know what I would do. I’d serve myself…
What I Want
I wouldn’t waste effort looking around to see what’s available. I’d just give Marshall whatever Marshall wanted. It’s simple. I’ve trained well in the art of selfishness.
But let’s convert this to selflessness.
To serve others effectively, you serve them what they want.
You serve what they want, when they want, where, they want, how they want. And you dunk it in chocolate if they want that also.
This is the key to effective service. Effective service relates to the customer. It gives what the customer understands. It gives what the customer seeks. It gives what the customer craves.
Think of a recent purchase. What did you buy? Why did you buy it? Did you understand it? Did you look for it? Did you want it?
If you’re a teenager, you might have purchased your favorite band’s new CD. If you’re that teenager’s mother, you might have considered paying to turn that same CD off.
Whatever it was you bought, you probably really wanted. You wanted it enough to buy it.
We’re called to serve that much value by serving what is wanted.
Think of a Christmas gift you enjoyed receiving. I’m not talking about the one from your son, a picture of a tornado… or was it a volcano… or a toucan? You enjoyed that gift based on the motive behind it. No, what gift have you received that you love for the gift itself, not just because you love the giver?
Chances are, you love that gift because it was given on your terms. The gift likely has meaning for you.
If you’re a hunter, you don’t want free crocheting lessons. If you want those crocheting lessons, you don’t want an apprenticeship with an auto mechanic.
Think of Jesus Christ. What do you think He was doing here in that human body? Granted, God made these bodies, so they’re not completely horrid. But giving up heaven to come here? …to help a bunch of fishermen and cripples? …choosing to suffer pain?
God the Father sent Jesus to interact with us on our terms. He became one of us. God served the hardest, most effective way.
Too often, we come up with a product, and say, “Hello world, here’s what I’ve got. Who wants it?”
Most of the time, no one does. And then we feel like we’ve done our duty because we’ve tried to serve. But we haven’t served on their terms.
I gladly (or semi-gladly) volunteer to clean at my church. “Sure,” I’m thinking, “I can do this.” But when the day comes, when I receive that phone call to come clean right in the middle of my weekend, I often lose it.
That servant’s heart evaporates.
Have you been in a similar situation? You’re all ready to serve. You’re fired up. You’re motivated. But then you find out that serving means waking up early to help some random neighbor load a pickup track with furniture… follow the truck to the new house… unload it… and repeat three times.
Or service means leaving your Thanksgiving party to visit the hospital.
Or service means listening to your friend explain all the problems of life when you could be napping.
These trivial services make the difference – when you serve even though you don’t have to, even though you’re not necessarily expected to.
The greatest service is when you serve when it inconveniences you a lot and only seems to benefit a little. You might say the service-to-benefit ratio is skewed. You’re serving massive effort for comparatively small benefits.
That’s when serving gets painful. And that’s when serving gets effective.
Jesus served us, giving His priceless effort, for only a few to accept salvation. But it was the greatest service ever given.
The hardest, most effective way to serve others is to serve on their terms.
Serving Suggestions:
(1) What kills your comfort zone? That’s most likely the service you should perform. Try it.
(2) Make it a daily habit to serve someone based on what he or she understands.
Twitter Updates
Hi Marshall,
Our interest, too, is learning to “love our neighbors” in the ways the Bible teaches. So I’ve just bookmarked your site to let us continue to see what you say.
This blog reminded me of something I wrote (an excerpt from chapter 2 of a book I’m working on). Maybe it fits with the season too:
Loving our neighbors shows Christian maturity.
We often emphasize what we get from God. We get love. We get joy. We get peace. We get salvation. We get healing. We get the Holy Spirit. We get prayers answered. We get to go to heaven. All those are wonderful!
Yet they’re only where we begin as Christians.
When we were children, didn’t we enjoy getting presents at birthdays and Christmas? Were we as excited about giving? Hardly! Our parents had to teach us to do that. Many of us didn’t fully learn that it was “more blessed to give than to receive” until we had children of our own.
Neither of the two commandments Jesus called the most important talks about what we get! They both talk about what we give! We are to give love to God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength; and to give love and help to our neighbors.
We begin as “babes in Christ,” thoroughly enjoying what we get. That’s OK. Wouldn’t we worry about children who didn’t enjoy presents? But God doesn’t want us to stay there. He longs for us to grow up, mature, and come to know the joys and blessings of giving.
Best wishes, for your blog – and for Christmas.
Pete A.
Pete,
Thank you for commenting. Your comment was the first since I re-opened bondChristian.com yesterday.
I appreciate you posting such an in-depth piece from your book. Please let me know when it comes out.
I ventured over to your site and read through some of your Bible study. It looks fantastic. Such a blessing to have so much great content available online.
Hopefully we can continue to connect in the future as we continue to serve God (by serving others). Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help you out. That’s what I’m all about. And again, thank you for your encouragement.
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Hi Marshall,
Thanks for your reply. It was nice to be your first commentor this time around.
You said to ask if you can help us out. Assuming you’re not in the market to buy a house in Western Wyoming’s desert (which we strongly doubt – it would be a tad of a long commute for you), we would definitely appreciate your prayers for us. We’ve taken a step of faith to do what we believe God wants us to do next, and now we have one “mountain” that needs to move so we can go ahead. If you can pray with us that that’ll happen, we’ll appreciate it.
By the way, once that “mountain” moves, it may not be long until we’re ready to go ahead with publishing the book. When that process starts, we’ll likely have to take down the Internet version, and it’ll still probably be 8 or 10 months until the book-form version will be ready. So I’d suggest you print yourself a copy of what’s up there now. That’s free. There will be some more personal stories added in the final version – some rather attention-getting ones – but all of the Bible-study part is there now, and you’re welcome to copy it and/or encourage friends to.
God’s blessing on you – Pete A. & family
I certainly will keep you in prayer. I think I even Stumbled your site when I was there yesterday. I’ll check again to make sure. What you have up so far is excellent, so yes, I’ll be happy to share it too.
Thank you for replying,
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Wow. Thanks for the reminder. It just makes me think, that while I’d love to buy my brother a book for a Christmas gift, he’d rather have a band t-shirt.
Awesomeness.
Amanda,
Just today I was talking with my brother about how cool books are as gifts. They usually have cool artwork on them, they’re fun to collect, and if you give one that you’ve actually read and enjoyed, it’s like given a part of you away.
But yeah, I could see the band T-shirt rockin’ too. To each his own.
Makes me wonder, though, what book would you like for Christmas, Amanda? Have any book wish list yet/still?
-Marshall Jones Jr.
All I really want is to be able to go to a writing conference In Denver in February actually. Thanks for askng. How about you?
I don’t particularly have any that I want right now. That’s part of the reason I ask: to get ideas. :>) Right now, though, I have a stack of about ten unread books and a couple halfway finished books to read. I love reading, though, so this isn’t a problem.
The conference sounds fun. Which conference is it, and why that one in particular?
-Marshall Jones Jr.
Yeah I have a stack of books on my desk also, I’m kind of a sucker for cool cover art. It’s the Christians writer guild conference and some one sent me a link to it. I have been trying to get involved with different writing communities since a college prof suggested it a couple years ago.
If you need book gift ideas penguin has put out beautiful hardcover editions of the classics.
Thank you for the tip. I haven’t seen the hardcovers, though I’ve purchased quite a few of the soft covers.
It’s definitely good to get out and interact with other writers and editors (et al.)… something I should do more often too. Hope you’re able to go.
-Marshall Jones Jr.