So I broke into a house for the first time ever (see picture above)! And I did it in the middle of the day wearing a bright orange Grace shirt.

Well, I didn’t exactly break in. I was trying to close that window so that I could bleach the siding on this family’s house. I did this as a part of Operation Serve, a day where our church served the Montgomery County community.

It was such an amazing day. I was a project leader for one of our neighborhood projects, and we cleaned the siding, replaced the floor, tub surround, toilet, and vanity of the bathroom, rewired lots of appliances, cleaned gutters out, landscaped, and put in two new doors…all in the name of Christ! My project was one of 14 neighborhood houses where similar work was done. There were 23 projects that went on outside of the neighborhood “extreme makeover”. These projects comprised various activities, such as landscaping, building wheelchair ramps, ministering to folks in the nursing home, “random acts of kindness,” a block party, delivering flowers, …all in the name of Christ! Why would we do something like this? Because Christ has served us and commanded us, in His Word, to serve others.

Christ did not come on this earth to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:28). The disciples got a great picture of this when Jesus washed their feet. He had come to be their servant. “This majestic person from whom they have now come to expect the unexpected has finally gone too far…the act of feetwashing was the proper duty of only a slave.” (S. E. Schnaiter, “Leadership Preparation: Theme of a Paragraph, John 13:1-20,” Biblical Viewpoint, (November 2000): 16.) Yet Jesus explains that this act of service represents a deeper reality that he will serve them by dying on the cross in their place. “But I am among you as one who serves.” (Luke 22:27) As Christ has served us, dying in our place on the cross, we are called to serve others.

Why does the task of evangelism have to be relegated to sharing a few Scripture verses from Romans, accompanied by an impersonal tract that simplistically explains the gospel? Jesus didn’t just seek to meet people’s spiritual needs. Take, for example, the story of the 4 friends bringing the paralytic to Jesus in Mark 2:1-12. Did Jesus just forgive the man of his sins and neglect his physical problems? No. He forgave the sins, then healed the man’s paralysis. He met both the physical and spiritual needs of this man. How about the feeding of the 5,000 in Mark 6:30-44? If Jesus didn’t care about us working hard to meet physical needs, would he have cared about the hunger of these people?

At Operation Serve, we served our community with no strings attached. We gave, expecting nothing in return. When we serve in that way, we are acting like Christ.

You may have already seen this video, but if not, I hope you enjoy it.  We can squabble over styles of music, but I pray that we never go back to this…ever.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-NOZU2iPA8&hl=en&fs=1]

It’s hard to capture community and try to explain it to people in a Sunday morning announcement.  Nevertheless, we gave it a shot.  Check out this video that I put together, trying to give people a snapshot of what it looks like, physically, to live life in healthy community with other believers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1Yo9fa4bNw&hl=en&fs=1]

In a report published in the magazine Monitor on Psychology: A Publication of the American Psychological Association (February 2008, Vol. 39, No. 2), “the majority of clinicians regard their spirituality as important, and religion, in general, as beneficial to mental health…however, clinical psychologists are much less religious than the general population.” (page 10) They cite that over 90% of the general public believes in God, while less than 70% of psychologists claim belief in God. Over 50% of the general population ranked religion as “very important”, while only slightly more than 20% of psychologists.

Why? Though there may be many reasons, it seems that, as man increases in knowledge, he perceives himself to have less of a need for God. If he can explain, scientifically, how the human body works, and prescribe medications that “fix” it, then what need does he have for a transcendent God? To these people, God is a crutch for the weak, who can’t make it through life and need something/someone to fall back on. Since they don’t have the emotional and intellectual tools necessary to cope and succeed in life, they need to craft a god that will help them make sense of life. I would imagine that the discrepancy between the general public and psychologists’ belief in God would not be limited to psychology, but would be seen throughout academia.

But man’s need for God is not based on the ability, or the lack thereof, to explain the human body and postulate theories on the origins of the universe. Our need is also not based on some people’s inability to develop healthy relationships and make sense of life. Our need for God is, in one sense, a result of our sin. Our sin has separated us from God, and broken our relationship with Him. Our sin nature keeps us from perfect fellowship with God, and the sins that easily entangle us break the beautiful communion that even those who are saved experience. In the way that my communion/fellowship with my wife wanes when I sin against her, so sin separates us from God. But our need for God is not solely derivative of our sin nature. Our need for God is rooted in the creation account. Man needed God even before the Fall (Genesis 3), evidenced in the fact that God spoke directly to man, telling him what he needed to do (Genesis 1:28, “Be fruitful and multiply…”). Man could not figure out life on his own, so God spoke to us. This is part of what it means to be human, that we need truth spoken to us from outside of ourselves.

We were created with a need for God, and that needs exponentially increases because of our sin. So what does this have to do with psychological health? Whatever difficulty you’re going through in life, let that point you back to your relationship with God. If your relationship with God is broken, you it is reasonable to expect that other areas of your life may be broken as well. Start by working on your walk with Christ. You need Christ, and not just because you are weak and broken because of your sin (though this need is great). You were created to need Him. Run back to Christ, and trust that, though life will still be difficult, you are a child of the king, in whom all things are held together. (Colossians 1:17)

I’m not going to give much commentary for you here.  Just suffice it to say that words really do matter.  The way you say something, the tone of voice you use, the timing, the attitude, the context, the manner and mode of delivery…it all matters!  It also matters the words that you choose.  Watch this video, and laugh a lot.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YooKkyikXw0&hl=en&fs=1]