How about We all Skip Church Next Sunday?

Two weeks ago, the church where I serve, Austin Christian Fellowship, cancelled our three weekend services. Instead of gathering for worship, we encouraged our congregants to get out into the city and serve.

Click the image to watch a brief video about the Serve Our City initiative

This is actually a new initiative for us, and it’s a direct result of some things we think the Lord has spoken to us coming out of our Restoration service last May 5. We’ve dedicated every weekend in the year that has five Sundays to be serving weekends. And so on those days, we hope to send hundreds if not thousands of eager volunteers out to serve our city.

At our first serving day, we had teams that:

Loaded backpacks full of food and other provisions and distributed them to homeless people
Served breakfast to and led a worship event for a group of special needs adults who live in city housing
Provided breakfast, prayer and encouragement to a group who lost their homes in the recent Austin floods
Met and worshipped with the homeless and other volunteers at Church Under the Bridge.
Assembled and delivered cookie care packages for area first responders.
And, many other projects as well.

It was a great day, and I can’t wait till the next one.

Worship at Church Under the Bridge

We think it’s important for us to do this for several reasons:

1. We’re a little fat. By that I mean that many in our congregation think that church is only about gathering. They think that meeting and eating (spiritually) is all we do. They never get any real spiritual exercise.

2. Sometimes the Church just needs to be seen and not heard. We do a lot to promote the Gospel in Austin and around the world, including giving away 45% of our annual receipts to other missions and Gospel organizations. Serving is a different way to share Christ’s love. It’s less about words and more about actions. Sometimes we lean too far toward words and not enough toward actions.

Preparing Cookie Care Packages

3. It’s good for us. When I was talking to Sunshine, an eighty-something year old woman who lives at Austin’s home for special needs adults, I was again reminded of how sheltered I am. And how much I don’t know. Sunshine’s had a hard life. She’s learned many great lessons in the school of hard knocks. And, she has a profound faith. I can learn things talking to Sunshine that I won’t learn anywhere else. And, I’ll be reminded of just how good it is for me to get out and serve others.

What about you? Will you commit to regularly get out and serve those who can’t pay you back?

If you or your church want to know more about ACF’s Serve Our City initiative, Click Here.