A Service Experiment

I thought I would share with you and project I did recently without telling anyone during the week that led up to Easter. As you may know, I attend Turning Point Church in McDonough, GA. We designate the week before Easter as Love Week. During this week we perform community outreach on each day. It is truly awesome to see folks from our church come together, by the hundreds, to serve.

I challenged myself during this week to do the following: ANYTHING I was ask to do by anyone. It reminded me of the Jim Carrey movie “Yes Man.”

I really enjoyed this time of submitting my time, energy, talent and treasure during this special week. It was certainly challenging at times at home, work and even at church. For instance, one of my daughters asked me to take her shopping at the end of the very long and exhausting week. She wanted to buy with her own money an Easter gift for one of her friends who was likely to not have anything for Easter due to financial struggles. The request was not a problem other than for my exhaustion and for the fact that the only time we could do it was late Friday night. The last thing I wanted to do was go shopping!

How could I refuse her request, even if it wasn’t Love Week? In fact, I was proud of her for thinking of her friend.

At work, I was asked to mentor one of my colleagues who was struggling in a certain area. Again, during this busy week, I didn’t know how I was going to do it. Somehow we found the time and the two of us had an amazing meeting that helped BOTH of us!

At Turning Point, I was able to participate in the following Love Week activities: single mom car care clinic, gas buy down, feed the community, coke outreach, and the Eggstravaganza.  I wanted to do every activity, but work prevented me from doing so. I traveled to Orlando one day to grill a lunch in recognition of the staff at one of my schools there and I also had road trips to Columbus and Albany.

I did face an interesting dilemma when I was asked to take Easter Bunny pix at our Eggstravaganza. I was already taking pix and video at the event. I could not do both at the same time. So, I was unable to honor that request.

A special moment came one day when I was at the church helping to get it ready for Easter. A young man walked in the church.  I did not recognize him so I walked up to greet him. He introduced himself and I could tell by his demeanor that he needed help.  He explained that he was an Army veteran and that since his return from Afghanistan, he was having difficulty getting work.  He said that someone from our church recommended he come.

He told me that he had a job interview that was about 100 miles away and that he did not have gas money to get there. Even though I knew I was going to help regardless, I spoke to Pastors Ben and Andy about this young man.  I then decided to drive to the nearest gas station and fill up the tank on his borrowed truck. While at the pump I asked him if I could pray for him and he willingly agreed. We prayed that doors would be opened and that he would seek God’s presence in his life.  We were both humbled by the Spirit. We wiped away tears and he departed for his journey.

I was so happy to see him that Sunday for the Easter worship experience. He had not yet heard about the job. I am still praying for that.

All in all, I think my project went very well. I felt God’s influence in my life and it has motivated me to continue to look for opportunities to serve. I am going to continue my project by selecting days each week when I continue this practice. I feel led to do so. I feel the Lord has something that I need to be learning and that it will prepare me for something bigger. I can’t wait to find out what that is!

I would love for others to try this project too. If you do, tell me how it goes!