Serving this Summer

It is a high priority of mine to emphasize serving in the lives of our students at REALife. There is so much to be said for developing a life of prayer and meditation on God's word. These are such essential pieces of our spiritual lives, but so often that's where most people stop. I like to try to instill in our students that the Christian life is meant to be lived as evidence to the love of Jesus that we have received. The book of James chapter one verse twenty-two also tells us "Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says." When the Bible tells us to love God and love our neighbor as ourself, these are not commandments to "feel" love for people, but to live it out in our lives.

At REALife we do this in two ways. We encourage our students to get involved at Meck serving in one of our ministries. We have so many areas where we are in need of volunteers at all of our campuses. From guest services to MECKidz and the arts team there are plenty of areas where they can get involved. We also go outside of the walls of our church to serve somewhere in the community once a month. The reputation of our students precedes us, as the workers at places like Crisis Assistance and Second Harvest Food Bank always tell me that our group has so much life, energy, and love.

Why am I telling you all of this? Well, this summer I'd like to encourage you as parents to serve along side of your son or daughter. If you are not already serving at Meck in a ministry, talk to your family and see where you all might want to give of some of your time at Meck to help us towards our mission of reaching people with the love of Jesus. If you know of a place you would like to serve as a family, or even have more questions about it you can contact our director of connections, Kati Leach, at kleach@mecklenburg.org and she will connect you with a ministry leader who will get you serving right away (and if you want to serve at REALife, just let me know. I'd love to have you on the team).

There are also several opportunities each month to participate as a family in our monthly serve days at Meck. This is a great opportunity for students and parents, as we also encourage our REALife students to join up on these Serve Days through the summer instead of scheduling our own. For information about these Serve Days or to register head to mecklenburg.org/events for more details.