Christian Service Philosophy

Personal Philosophy of Christian Service

Serving those around me in a Christian manner has been the only thing I’ve known growing up. My parents raised me to treat those around me not only how I would want to be treated but also how Christ would treat me or the people around me. This idea of Christian service reminds me of the W.W.J.D. bracelets that people wear and there is a constant reminder of what you are doing and if Christ would approve of that. However, I think that understanding Christian service and doing Christian service are two different things and today we get a mixed perception of this from our world. It is also a question of whether or not to show any aspect of our religious life to those around us because it might be offensive.
One of the first things we did in this class was evaluate ourselves and learn what we have been gifted with by God as far as Spiritual Gifts. I think this was a very valuable process because it made us think about ourselves and what we feel have been things important and well experienced in our lives. After this process, we shared these different gifts with the class and this was a real turning point. For most people who never do the Spiritual Gifts Inventory process, they may never fully understand how God can use their gifts. I am not saying they can’t use their gifts or that they won’t know what they are, they would just have a greater appreciation for those abilities and gifts if they recognized them. This is where Christian service comes into practice. Since we all have different gifts, we can use them in different ways to approach Christian service and sharing the love of Christ to everyone around us. Some people might have the gift of Pastor, Giving, Hospitality, and Miracles. Others might have more or less or a different combination of the gifts we recognized in the process. I think this is how we can take ownership of the World around us the process of Christian service. I mean, how boring would life be if we were all only good at the same things and didn’t have any variation, REALLY BORING! As we discussed in class that every person has their own narrative in life, this is really a little part of our narrative, which in all reality should be a big part of our narrative. As Paul said in Romans 12:16, “God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well,” we need to use these gifts to the fullest in Christian service to those around us. Now that we understand the gifts that we do have and that each person is unique in the gifts they posses, we need to use those gifts to reach out to those around in the