28 Days of Service

At church, Sunday we kicked off a new program 28 Days of Service. The idea came from the 30 Day Giving Challenge that I blogged about (a couple times) at the beginning of November. We changed it to service because it flowed better with our sermon themes and shortened the days because it wasn't beginning on the first of month - we went with a four week format. I'm really excited about this project and I really hope our people are following though. Even if we don't 100% get though, its a really great way to increase our intentional generosity. We made a calendar - (it works now), so people could prepare ahead the ways they would serve and record what they do each day. We also distributed a comprehensive list of service/giving ideas - (it works now). I thought this would be helpful for anyone who was a little hesitant to commit to a 28 day project - afraid they couldn't think of that many things. The list has over 60 ideas and I had to stop myself from listing more.

So we're two days in - what have I done?
Day 1 - I taught our kids at church and tried to encourage them to participate in the service challenge as well. I also spent some time in the evening visiting "click to give" sites. I clicked several cups of food for the hungry, a few mammograms, some health care for needy children, and about 2 cups of food for shelter animals. However, what I learned most from the day was how the challenge stayed on my mind. It really affected the way I spent time with the people around me. It made me reach out to a kid who seemed upset, play harder with Ariel, talk more with my husband, and think about the way I said things (and notice when I wasn't serving like I could).

Day 2 - I really haven't done very good today. Jason, my husband, did though. He served his family today. He stayed home as much as he could and just spent time with us. He helped with somethings around the house, but his presence meant the most. He didn't say that was what he was doing, but I had my suspicions. He just told me I was right. Back to me though, I thought about the challenge a lot, but didn't get right down to doing anything till tonight. I decided after making dinner to make some cookies. So for the challenge, I made enough to box some up and give them to our neighbor Joe. It was late when I finished them, so I'll ask Jason to run them over tomorrow. We like Joe, hopefully, he'll be blessed by a snack from a neighbor.

Maybe you would like to join us in this challenge? I'd love to know your thoughts. We have a discussion and updates that we are posted on the Christ's Fellowship fan page on Facebook. We'd love to have you join us.