The Service Practice
Join us on a journey to cultivate service in the way of Jesus. Each week they’ll be a talk on Sunday and an invitation into a service practice that week. See The Service Practice Companion guide and other helpful resources from Practicing the Way below.
The modern West is consumed with self-interest.
In a culture dominated by consumerism and individualism, the message — not just being told to us, but forming us — is that we must “look out for number one.” We are taught, both implicitly and often explicitly, not to “value others above ourselves,” as the Apostle Paul once wrote, but to do the opposite.
Even when our lives are disrupted by the needs around us, we can feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of issues we see, paralyzed and uncertain of where to give our attention. Many of us carry a quiet guilt or shame for not doing enough, and yet we still don’t know the path forward. In this time of self-focus and overwhelming need, the practice of service, as taught and modeled by Jesus, is vital. Jesus, “the Son of Man [who] came not to be served, but to serve,” invites us to follow him in radical service that moves us beyond ourselves and into love.
Service that follows compassion, surrendering plans, and expectations. Service that goes unseen in hidden places. Service that befriends those we perhaps thought we were above. Service that, in love, embraces a great cost to ourselves.
In this Practice, we will explore what it looks like to make serving others our way of being in the world — uncovering the why, how, where, and who in Jesus’ vision of service. This kind of service will certainly not just happen in our “me-centered,” self-gratifying world. It will require practice. But if we say yes to Jesus’ invitation to attune and attend to the needs around us, it has the potential to do a deep work — not just through us, but in us.
Welcome to the Practice of Service.
Practice Resources
Read
The Service Practice: Companion Guide, From John Mark Comer and Practicing the Way
Watch
Watch the weekly sermons on Service from Ger Jones & Tyler Staton on our YouTube channel.
“In our culture, living in regular, intentional community is a vital act of counterformation and a radical witness to our surrounding culture. But this invitation to community is about more than weekly attendance at a Sunday service – as important as that is. It’s an invitation to live deeply into a new family, not based on blood, background, or biases, but on our shared apprenticeship to Jesus.”
Listen
The Community Series on the Rule of Life Podcast
Community 01: Rediscovering Jesus’ Vision for Family (featuring Andy Crouch)
Community 02: Family Systems and Life in Community (featuring Jay and Danielle Pathak)
Community 03: Overcoming Shame — The Ancient Enemy of Community (featuring Dr. Curt Thompson)
Community 04: What We Avoid in Community (featuring David Kim)
