Tag Archives: gifts and acts of service

“Make Me Feel Important”

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Make Me Feel Important

Imagine that everyone that you meet is wearing a sign that says, “Make Me Feel Important”

In a recent post, we discussed how we are often more important than we realize. So today, I thought I’d flip the script a bit and repost an older article about how we need to make others feel important by imagining that everyone wears a sign that says, “Make me feel important.”

My church is a pretty large church in Tulsa, OK.  There are several things that our church does to make a big church feel a little smaller with small groups, serving opportunities, outreaches, etc.  One of the things we used to do was called a “section community” which is defined as people who connect weekly by sitting in the same section of the auditorium when they come to church.  Each section has section leaders who facilitate connection among the section members.

My section had some pretty great leaders—Scott and Dawn.  One way they connected with us on a regular basis outside of service was through some encouraging e-mails and Facebook posts.  One time they sent an e-mail that I TOTALLY loved, and I got their permission to share it on my blog.  It’s about how we, as Christians, should be treating others.  In particular, they shared how we should imagine that everyone that we encounter on a day-to-day basis is wearing a sign that says, “Make me feel important”.

Imagine that everyone that you meet is wearing a sign that says, “Make me feel important”

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Here is Scott and Dawn’s e-mail message:

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4 Ways to Show Generosity This Season

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4 Ways to Show Generosity This Season

This past week in the United States we celebrated our Thanksgiving holiday and subsequently the start of the largest shopping season of the year. It’s easy to lose focus and lose sight of what we celebrate this week and to remain in a “thankful” posture. In light of that, that’s a primary reason why the Tuesday following the Thanksgiving holiday has been designated as “Giving Tuesday”.

GivingTuesday.org describes this day as a “Global Generosity Movement” that was “created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. Over the past seven years, this idea has grown into a global movement that inspires hundreds of millions of people to give, collaborate, and celebrate generosity.”

Giving Tuesday can serve to remind all of us to be both thankful for what we blessed with as we recognize others in need as well as become more outwardly focused, looking to our communities and to those in need in order to find ways of helping them.

I would like to take the opportunity before Thanksgiving and before Giving Tuesday to get readers to start thinking about a purposed and intentional plan of generosity.

My challenge today is to encourage you to form a plan of some kind of “sacrificial” generosity or giving in one of four ways:

    1. Financial
    2. Time
    3. Gifts/Talents
    4. Prayer
      Show sacrificial generosity in one of 4 ways this season: Financial, Time, Gifts/Talents, or Prayer

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Financial

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Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

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Acts of Kindness and Good Deeds

We have some new little neighbor kids who just moved here from Phoenix a couple months ago. They’ve been coming to the back of the neighborhood where we live and playing in our creek/ditch. Their mom said it’s their favorite place in the whole neighborhood because of the trees and rocks and creek and such. They come catch tadpoles and frogs and crawfish.

I got an idea for act of kindness that my daughter and I could do for these little ones. I can’t take credit for the idea though. It came from my friend Kim. She and her daughter painted some rocks and put them out on walking paths as a surprise for some little girls in their neighborhood to find on their walks. This was such a great idea that my daughter and I decided to duplicate it for our new neighbors.

We painted some rocks in some fun designs and then set them all out in our creek for the kids to find when they come back to play sometime. The anticipation has been so exciting as we’ve been waiting on them to come back to find their surprises. We’ve even talked about expanding our idea to set little decorated rocks out at the base of some of our neighbors mailboxes as an act of kindness for them too so they might have a little fun surprise when they get their mail. Then we discussed even making more to take to some nature trails to lay out for other families and kids to find out some point, and we talked about making some to put in geocaches we find too.

Good deeds rock painting collage

Good deeds painted rocks collage

Expressing an act of kindness is a fun way to pass time

Doing good deeds and seeing the creative ways that others have done good deeds has been a wonderful way to pass the time recently during the COVID-19 pandemic as so many of us are homebound. We love watching clips lately from Some Good News, or following Good News Movement and Global Positive News on Instagram. It’s also fun to get inspiration from those internet or Pinterest posts tagged “faith in humanity restored”. If you’re ever having a bad day these are all good places to focus on the good, pure, lovely and admirable things.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.” Philippians 4:8 (NLT)

However, these are also some great places to get some good ideas for some good deeds! Jesus tells us to love our neighbor. (I’ve even written before about loving your actual neighbor.)

“The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:31 (NIV)

This commandment is only second in importance to loving God with all of our hearts, souls, minds and strength.  I also personally believe that the second command—to love our neighbor—is one way HOW we go about showing our love for God in a tangible, practical way.  We can do this by doing good deeds, loving people, and showing God’s compassion and kindness toward them.  It really does stand out in today’s narcissistic and self-entitled culture where people rarely go out on a limb for another.

They will know we are Christians by our love

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The Benefits of Service Learning

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The Benefits of Service Learning

In the class I teach at the local community college, the students are required to complete 4 hours of service learning. At the end of our course, these students are required to do a presentation of their service learning experience. This past week was our final week of class (it’s a short-term, 10-week class), and they conducted their presentations and presented their Vision Boards. It was by far my favorite week of class! Talk about feel-good, uplifting class sessions…this was a perfect way to end our course on a high note.

It didn’t start like that

At the beginning of the semester a large number of the students aren’t terribly excited about this “required volunteer” component (sounds like an oxymoron right?). In fact some of them are just downright mad!

I hear comments like…

“Why do I HAVE to volunteer?”

“You mean we can’t get paid for this work?!”

“I don’t have time to do service learning.”

“This seems like such a waste of time.”

By the end of our class I love seeing the turnaround in many of their attitudes and perspectives. They start to see why service learning is so beneficial, not only to those they serve, but to them as well.

What is Service Learning?

Service Learning incorporates learning with meaningful community service and promotes volunteerism toward meaningful social causes that interest people/students as an individuals. This type of activity allows individuals to develop real-world skills while contributing to their community at the same time.

At the local college where I teach we’ve adopted a definition of service learning as an experiential education that includes:

  1. Student participation in an organized service activity that reinforces specific course learning outcomes
  2. Student identification and response to community need(s)
  3. Structured time for student reflection and connection of the service experience to learning

At my church we might identify these activities as our Love Your Neighbor Outreaches (both locally and globally). At our church we believe that saved people, serve people. We do this by finding opportunities to use the gifts, talents, and resources that God has given us to serve others.

What are some of the benefits of Service Learning?

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I Just Turned 40! Find Out How I Felt So Loved by Gifts and Acts of Service

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I Just Turned 40! Find Out How I Felt So Loved by Gifts and Acts of Service

I Just Turned 40!  Find Out How I Felt So Loved by Gifts and Acts of Service

I celebrated my 40th birthday this past weekend. Boy, turning 40 sure has been a trip!  I’ve seen more changes at this age than at any other.  My hormones are going bonkers.  I’ve been dealing with crazy adult acne and melasma (discoloration of my skin) lately.  My eyesight has changed significantly.  I’m now finding myself having to pull things away from my face to see them better.  I think bifocals or reading glasses may be in my near future!  Apparently I’m now supposed to be getting mammograms every year.  Yay.  I’ve also experienced some other changes that would be inappropriate to discuss, so I’ll spare you the details!  You’re welcome.

Truly though, I can say that I am very happy, healthy and prosperous at this age!  God has really blessed me, and although my life is far from perfect, I am very content and pleased to be standing where I am today.  I also know that God has much more in store for me.  As far as I’m concerned, my life isn’t even half over yet!  I’m excited and maybe a little apprehensive about what’s to come in the years ahead.  Whatever happens though, I have the most amazing support system to tackle anything that life throws at me.  I understand what Paul meant when he talked about being content:

“…for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know both how to have a little, and I know how to have a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content–whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11-13 (HCSB)  

40th Birthday painting party

40th birthday painting party

I felt so very loved this past weekend as my family and friends celebrated with me.  Some of them joined me for a fun painting party at a local DIY shop, Completely Random.  Afterwards we had some friends and family over to the house for a Parisian-themed party.  My house looked like we stepped right into Paris thanks to my sister-Shawna (I’ve written about her talents before), my mom-Jacki, my sister-Cora, and my sister-in-law-Keisha.  There was so much time, money and effort spent on making my party fabulous and full of all things that I love.

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