How to serve

I’ve thought long, and hard about this. Here is where I’ve come to rest.

The best kind of service is that service which speaks to your passions. It means finding ways of serving that are meaningful and enjoyable to you. It means being in touch with your own goals for your life, the kind of person you want to be, and the strengths you have. It may means broadening your scope of service from church-only service to service to humanity in general.

This is what it meant for me. After several decades of church service, I found I was no longer growing as an individual. My service felt one-sided for the church, with me personally not getting anything out of it. At times, I felt used, and unloved and unappreciated. I dreaded the monotony. The Unwritten Order of Things that Boyd K. Packer promoted — of serve where told until released — didn’t resonate with me anymore, as it left me out of the equation. It is the antithesis of what I believe about service.

I then found I had a passion for business-related service. I knew my strengths — a pretty strong organizer, ideator, with strategic thinking and organizational talents that were not tapped within the church. I also had a passion for serving in ways that benefited my career for a season, since it is under fire right now, and I had discovered church leadership didn’t matter one iota on my resume. This led me to service on the board of a non-profit as a business-related chairperson who helps small businesses. Wonderful experience that opened my eyes about my own talents, while serving others at the same time. And it was on my own terms — I was free to leave when I wanted to leave. Free to renew a term, and free to transfer my service to other institutions I found interesting. Free to stop serving, without judgment from a community or family if the service became too much. I threw myself into it, in spite of many challenges and am glad I did it.

For my wife, it’s service to animals! She has a huge heart when it comes to abandoned or sick animals. Wants to foster them, and wants to help organizations who serve them. She will talk to you all day about it. That is the right place for her.

So, I ask you a few questions:

1. What do you hope to accomplish with service? What does success look like to you?

2. What organizations have a mission that excites you?

3. For what groups/individuals in society do you feel deep compassion or a desire to serve?

4. What talents do you have, and where might they cross with the needs of the world?

5. What kinds of service make you feel most passionate?

I would answer these things (perhaps here), that might lead you to some discovery about where you might give meaningful services — in the church, or out of the church.

[By the way, my philosophy doesn’t exclude programmed service when there is a true need, or doing service I would rather not do, when there is someone who needs it and there is no one else around. But for elective, long-term service, I believe in my philosophy above]

Other questions I would ask myself.

1. Is money important to me? I would expect most service jobs in the community to pay lower wages than the private (for profit) organizations.

2. Am I willing to work long hours? I would expect that most service jobs would require you put in long hours. It may be on a regular basis or for special project.

3. Am I willing to face the pressures that come service organizations? Fund raising or private grants short falls.

4. Do I have a strategy if I want to get out of a service job? Where could I go to?

5. I would try to talk to as many people I could who are already working in the field you want to get into.

Be prepared to ask a lot of questions.

As much as I like the introspection Mike, I chuckled when I read this list, because we EXPECT THE answer to numbers 1-3 to be “yes” in the church. We don’t even encourage people to ask those question! We just expect them to buck up and do those things!

And for #4, we don’t even get to plan that, at least, not in a systemized or sanctioned way. Nor are we encouraged to do research as you suggest in number 5. We are simply to expect local leaders to get inspiration about where we should be, and follow it. Now, when considering a broader range of service out of the church, we encourage those kinds of questions. It is very ironic and a bit humorous to me.

Look for people who need help. Help as many as you can, to whatever degree you can, without damaging yourself or those you love. Lose yourself without losing yourself.

Figure out what that means to you personally, and learn not to care if others define things differently.

It’s not easy or simple, but it’s a wonderful process.

So I wonder what you all think about this. I know there are scriptures that say things like “do not run faster than you have strength” and things, but its not so much that I can’t help these people, its just that I don’t want to help them in the way they need. I want to help people with certain needs I guess. So that’s why I wonder if its selfish to decide how I will help regardless of what help a specific person actually needs. What do you think?

My MIL does a lot for us. Unfortunately it seems to be more about her than us. She sends us huge Christmas packages loaded with individually wrapped “10 days of Christmas” boxes. Most of which are filled with dollar store items that cost less than the shipping to send it. Then there is the pseudo-obligation to gather round with the family every night opening the next package and send photos of how happy we are while doing it. She spends thousands of dollars for the family reunion and grandma’s camp and we feel manipulated into spending our vacation with them.

OTOH, DW has made increasingly insistent pleas for her parents to come visit us in our home (8 hr drive). There have always been reasons why they can’t come. Perhaps the most maddening reasons are the financial ones because we see what they spend in other areas so it just smacks of not being a priority.

Rather than just venting, I also have a couple of observations about this behavior.

1) We make time and devote money for what we want. I am sure that there are many limitations on this theory but overall, I see people doing /spending towards what is important to them. (I do this too)

2) We have different love languages. My MIL seems to have the love language of “financial gifts”. DW wants “quality time” and/or “act of service.” MIL comes off insensitive to DW’s needs and DW comes off ungrateful for all the gifts given.

My advice for you is to be aware of how you best give and lean into that inclination. Be aware that some people will not be able to fully appreciate the way you excel at giving service and that is ok. Serve where you can do the most good. Also do not be completely non-responsive to people’s needs in other ways (as long as you set boundaries and do not feel taken advantage of – I hate that!) Be aware of the relationships around you – IOW it would be prudent to put greater effort into maintaining good relationships with family than with neighbors.

I thought you expressed yourself fine :thumbup:

And the question “How selfish am I allowed to be” is a perfectly valid question.

People are different. Some people have a capacity to do so much, it makes me wonder if I should be like that. But at the end of the day, you need to search for what brings you happiness. I do think that comes from serving others responsibly. That means, don’t over do it. And in my experience, the Lord is happy with what we can give, not how much.

The church is a church of love, and should be there to support you and help you grow closer to God. While it will stretch us outside of our comfort zones at times, it is not about causing us pressure and pain, unless we let it. It is OK to say no, it is OK to not feel like you need to serve others all the time if you don’t want to.

I think you can allow yourself to not have to do things you don’t want to. And then observe…do you feel happy. If yes…it’s good. Don’t compare yourself to others or get caught in the “should” trap. Live in the moment and make your life happy.

My MIL does a lot for us. Unfortunately it seems to be more about her than us.

Excellent point. In my family, we have had “tension” over gift-giving that has led me to similar observations. In my family, most of the gifts come from my earnings, so when someone buys me something and it’s not something I want or need, I have occasionally suggested taking it back or exchanging it for something that makes better use of our funds. HUGE BACKLASH and negativity about my attitudes toward gifts. It led me to the conclusion the gift never was for me — it is for the people giving me the gift. And in giving me the gift, they actually caused me personal consternation in storing the gift in my house I find tough to keep organized, being inauthentic in appearing happy for the gift. And then, the aftermath of anger if I didn’t actually USE the gift after I gave an inauthentic response of appreciation for the usefulness of the gift.

Yes, I do recognize “it was the thought behind it”, but it leads me to this conclusion — service is a two-way street most of the time. It should bless the giver and the receiver simultaneously. it doesn’t have to be material, just reciprocal, with the giver at least feeling the thing they were asked to do was of value to others, and the receiver find the gift/service created some value for them, whether tangible or not.

OTOH, DW has made increasingly insistent pleas for her parents to come visit us in our home (8 hr drive). There have always been reasons why they can’t come. Perhaps the most maddening reasons are the financial ones because we see what they spend in other areas so it just smacks of not being a priority.

Same problem I faced with my in-laws. My wife and I went for a very long time without being able to have children. We finally had one, and they didn’t come to the hospital (it was two hours away from them), never came to see the baby at our home afterwards. My daughter was about a year old before they even met her, and only because we drove out to see them. It sent a message to me that my life was no longer important to them…they responded that they didn’t understand why coming to see me was so important to them. They said they gave gifts to us, so that should have sufficed…

1) We make time and devote money for what we want. I am sure that there are many limitations on this theory but overall, I see people doing /spending towards what is important to them. (I do this too)

Or serving in a way THEY think is meaningful.

2) We have different love languages. My MIL seems to have the love language of “financial gifts”. DW wants “quality time” and/or “act of service.” MIL comes off insensitive to DW’s needs and DW comes off ungrateful for all the gifts given.

Applying the theory above, I think your MIL might be better off doing those 10 days to christmas packages for a family that is impoverished and would truly need it, and therefore, have a need met.