We can not rely on organizations to help lay the foundation for a life of service. We must be intentional about developing habits that will make service a natural part of living because “the greatest joy and the highest education are found in service.” Come find out how you can cultivate a life of service!

Michigan Camp Meeting 2022: Knowing the Time

<p>We can not rely on organizations to help lay the foundation for a life of service. We must be intentional about developing habits that will make service a natural part of living because “the greatest joy and the highest education are found in service.” Come find out how you can cultivate a life of service!</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Creative Outreach for Everyday Life

Amy Austin

01 A Lifestyle of Service

You are about to enjoy a presentation recorded at the 2022 Michigan Conference Camp Meeting held at Cedar Lake, Michigan.

We pray that the Lord will bless you as you listen.

Dear Heavenly Father, we just thank you so much for camp meeting.

And we thank you for the beautiful weather and for the fellowship and the encouragement and all the things that we can learn, Lord.

Lord, we just ask for your Holy Spirit to be here now that we will be inspired and encouraged and that we'll learn something new that we can use to share your love with others.

All right, well, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Amy, you probably read that in the little description.

What really defines me, at least I think so, if probably if you ask people that know me well, what they know about me, 1 of the things anyways would be that I just have a passion for outreach and for fun and creative ways to share Jesus with the world around me.

And when I say the world around me, I don't mean the globe, I mean those that are right in my sphere of influence, you know, my neighborhood, my community, my family even, and I love to share these ideas that the Lord has given me with you so that you also can reach the world around you.

So this journey for me started, I don't know, maybe 12 years ago.

And it started because I just really had a deep desire to teach my children how to share Jesus, how to be active Christians, how to serve others, And I guess I've always thought in my mind that active church members are not nearly as likely to leave the church.

And so I wanted my kids to be active, but I wanted it not just to be a chore, I wanted them to have fun and to love doing it.

And so that we started when they were very little and we started just doing all sorts of fun things.

And so it's kind of just ended up as a deep passion of mine and a love and I have just found that outreach can be so fun that it's fulfilling and that it's rewarding.

And I have found that it can become woven through every aspect of life.

Outreach and service have kind of become like a lifestyle and today's specifically and throughout the week, That's really what I want to inspire you with, is that outreach can become not just an event or a church function or something we do at Christmas or whatever, but that it can become a lifestyle and that we can look for ways to share Jesus in fun ways, no matter where we're going, no matter what we're doing, whether it's a holiday or we're going to the grocery store, it can be a lifestyle.

So that's pretty much what it has become.

And I see myself, it's interesting, a holiday or something is coming up and I'm thinking in my head, okay, how can I use this to share Jesus?

In Testimonies for the Church, Volume 5, it says, crowd all the good works you possibly can into this life.

I think that is so fantastic, because that's really what this life should be about, right?

It says, crowd all the good works you possibly can into this life, and it's Testimonies for the Church, volume 5, page 488.

Okay, so There's somebody in the Bible who knew this very well and that is Tabitha.

In Acts 9.36, it says, at Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas.

This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did.

So she was an amazing lady who lived by this principle.

She was full of good works and charitable deeds.

So that means number 1, She intentionally looked for opportunities to go about doing good.

And 2, that it wasn't just an occasional thing where her church provided an opportunity for her to do something.

So this shows us that she didn't just do good things when the opportunity arose, but she was looking for ways to do good, and she did it all the time.

There's your quote there about crowd all the good works.

At Joppa, which is near Lyda, there lived a woman named Dorcas whose good deeds had made her greatly beloved.

She was a worthy disciple of Jesus and her life was filled with acts of kindness.

She knew who needed comfortable clothing and who needed sympathy, and she freely ministered to the poor and the sorrowful.

Her skillful fingers were more active than her tongue.

That's probably a whole sermon in itself, but we're just gonna concentrate on the skillful fingers.

She was active and she was doing good things.

So she was busy, her life was full of good works, but we all know what happened to her.

So we all know what happened to her next.

The whole community was deeply saddened by this because probably all of their lives had been touched by this woman.

So but then they sent for Peter and he through God's power was able to raise her back to life.

And you might wonder, you know, why is 1 person raised back to life and another person is not?

Well, we have just a little bit of insight into why she was, and Acts of the Apostles talks about this further.

Dorcas had been of great service to the church and God saw fit to bring her back from the land of the enemy, that her skill and energy might be a blessing to others and also that by this manifestation of his power, the cause of Christ might be strengthened.

So it was all for the cause of Christ, for blessing others that she was brought back from the dead.

The Lord knew that was the lifestyle that she lived.

So in this story of Dorcas, Christ illustrates the nature of the true Christian spirit.

He shows that the truly converted heart will live a life of intentional good works.

Not because they're working for their salvation, but because they truly love the Lord and because they truly love others and are seeking to share Jesus with others.

They want others to be saved, they want others to know Jesus.

So there are many, many ways that we too can be full of good works.

And so over the course of this week, that's what we're going to talk about.

I'm just going to share with you how our family has tried to cultivate a lifestyle of service and how we've taught our schools and churches.

My husband's a pastor, so we've been around and so Our churches get the benefit of this and the schools and just anybody else who wants to learn this type of thing.

Our desire has been just this, to cultivate a lifestyle of good works and to teach others to do that as well.

And the first place to start is in the home.

Ministry of Healing says, "'The home is the child's first school, "'and it is here that the foundation should be laid "'for a life of service.'" Now, I'm really thankful that my parents tried to do this.

That might not be the case for you, and that's okay, because as long as we're breathing, we have the opportunity to learn this and to train ourselves to do this.

In my childhood, it was all sorts of things from in-gathering to adopting a homebound grandparent, going on mission trips, lots of different things.

The thing here is that we cannot rely on our churches or schools or outreach programs to do this job for our children or for our school children or for ourselves.

We have to learn how to cultivate this lifestyle of serving.

So I'm gonna share with you 6 ways to help get you, your children, your schoolchildren, your grandchildren, yourself, used to and excited about serving others.

So the first thing we're gonna look at is that we have to make serving a priority.

Kind of like Daniel purposed in his heart that he wasn't gonna defile himself with the king's food.

We have to purpose in our heart, we have to determine that this is something we wanna do and then we have to make it a priority.

So just a couple little things that you can do.

This is, you see, it's even in a plastic bag.

It's not glamorous or beautiful or anything, but at 1 point we made little homeless bags.

And so there's a can of soup in there and some different snacks and some glow tracks.

A friend of mine who sews much better than I made this little packet.

And then there's toiletries and booklets and things like that in there.

So however you wanna make it, it doesn't have to be the most glamorous.

But if you make these, depending on where you live, there's obviously more homeless people in some places than others.

But if you stash those in your car, then you're ready for a hungry homeless person when you come upon them.

Or if you don't have homeless people in your area, then you probably know somebody who might be eating alone at some point, supper, invite them over.

Or there's people also that can't get out and so you could make and take food to them.

So just making it a priority, stashing things, having things ready so that you can minister at a moment's notice.

Another way to teach the love of service, this represents helping at home.

So whether you have children or grandchildren, or even at school, there's responsibilities at school, We can learn to serve each other.

Even if you have no children at home or in your life, if you're married, you can learn to serve each other at home.

You know, doing the dishes, replenishing the toilet paper.

Also, we want to make sure that we affirm, whether it's our children or our spouse or anybody who is making this effort to serve others, we want to affirm them.

02 The Gift of Giving

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for your love and thank you, Lord, that we can share that love with those around us.

I pray that you will inspire us and give us ideas, Lord, on how to do that in fun and creative ways.

All right, so yesterday we talked about creating a lifestyle of service so that it fits into everything that we're doing, not just church events or programs that we have.

So today we're gonna talk about 1 of those ways that we can live it, and everybody can do this because everybody has 1 of these.

I'm not going to wear the hat the whole time, because then you won't be paying attention.

But yes, we're going to talk about birthdays and how we can use our birthdays to be of service, to share God's love, to reach out to others, and I promise when you start doing this, they'll be the best birthdays that you have ever celebrated.

So I've never been big into birthday parties.

As my kids were growing up, not because I didn't really like birthday parties, but because I just didn't feel like we needed a whole slew of gifts coming into the house.

I'm like, what do we do with all these gifts?

So we really didn't have a whole lot, but every once in a while we would, just for fun, not for gifts.

But then we came across some things, some quotes, that helped even change our perspective a little bit even more on this.

So I'll read it to you in Adventist Home, page 473, it says, on birthday occasions the children should be taught that they have reason for gratitude to God, for his loving kindness in preserving their lives for another year.

Precious lessons might thus be given For life, health, food, and clothing, no less for the hope of eternal life, we are indebted to the giver of all mercies, and it is due to God to recognize his gifts and to present our offerings of gratitude to our greatest benefactor.

These birthday gifts are recognized in heaven.

And so after we found this quote and we prayed about it and thought about it some more, we started celebrating birthdays in a new way.

And these truly are the birthdays that we remember.

So it started, the first birthday we did like this was when my daughter turned 10 years old.

And we, instead of, She invited her friends to come.

There was a small church, churches that we were at, so there weren't a whole lot, but we invited all the kids to come.

And in the invitations, we invited them to bring gifts for the animal shelter, the local animal shelter, instead of gifts for her.

And so we loved this so much that we did it again when my boys I think were I don't know either 10 and 7 or their birthdays are in the same month in February.

And so we did it again and the same thing happened.

We still had dessert, we still had games, they had friends, but we didn't want the kids to bring them gifts.

And so they brought gifts for the animal shelter, and the animal shelters always need lots of different things.

And so what a blessing it was for the animal shelter to receive all these gifts.

But then it got even better because the animal shelter also gave them a tour of the whole facility and they got to play with the puppies and all the kittens and the cats.

And they just had an amazing time at the animal shelter.

And you know, that year we got them gifts, and when we do this, we still get a gift or 2 for our kids.

But they couldn't tell you what the gifts were, but they remember these experiences, and they remember the fun time that we had at these facilities.

And also, since their birthdays were in February, actually this time we gave all the kids Valentine glow tracks as well.

And so, as the party favor, you know, Everybody gives party favors and I don't like getting little trinkety toy things.

So we gave glow track packs and the kids handed them out also at the animal shelter.

So anyways, it was a fantastic birthday and we just look back on these fun memories with such fondness.

Another 1 that we did for my daughter's 12th birthday was an Adra birthday party, changing the world 1 life at a time.

And Adra does many amazing and wonderful things around the world.

So this time, instead of inviting the people who came, and this was actually church members too, not just the kids, but anyways, we invited them to bring donations for Adra, instead of bringing her gifts.

My kids, I don't know if they're normal or not, but they love to look through the Adra catalog and figure out what they could give.

And so whatever money she had, I think she chose 3 things to donate to Adra with the money that she got at that birthday.

And you know, they still had so much fun.

They had an impromptu water balloon fight and water fight at this birthday party.

They just had so much fun and it didn't involve getting all sorts of extra gifts.

It really is so much better to give thank you gifts to God for the life that He's blessed us with, because He's really the 1 that we have to thank for every year of life anyways.

So, but what I want to encourage you with, there's only a few kids in this room.

But, adults, this is just as much for you as it is for the kids.

So the first time I ever did this was when I celebrated my 40th birthday.

I said, I want to have a virtual random acts of kindness birthday party.

I didn't invite people to come have a party with me, but I set up a Facebook page for this virtual random acts of kindness birthday, and I invited all my friends to join this party and almost I think it was like 92 people who joined me for this party actually it was incredible and so I all I did was ask them if they would in honor of my 40th birthday if they would do some random act of kindness in their world to somebody that they know, and that they would post a picture of it on this Facebook page that I had, and if they would do it sometime during the week of my birthday.

My birthday's in December, so that actually makes it easier too because Christmas is a great time to do this type of stuff.

But anyway, so all week long I had people posting pictures about all the random acts of kindness that they were doing in honor of my birthday.

And I'm telling you, I was in tears many, many times.

And here's just a list of some of the things.

I couldn't do pictures, but I mean, just tons and tons of things.

Hot drinks to a bell ringer, maybe if, yeah, if you want to take a picture of this page.

Food for various people, cookies to the garbage men, random hugs to strangers.

She was in the pet at a veterinarian clinic and somebody had just lost their animal and they were crying.

He was helping a man into a locked truck, food for the needy, dollar bills they left around the dollar store just in little places for people to find.

Christmas bag, goodie bags for friends, people caroling at the mall, giving strangers a ride, hats, mittens, and candy canes to low-income children.

I don't know if you really want me to read all of them, but there are just so many things here that people did that.

It probably was the best birthday party I've ever had.

And so many people's lives were touched by it.

So, oh, and I did want to tell you, I was thinking about this yesterday as I was writing all these things out.

I did this in honor of my birthday, so I've already decided that when I die, at my funeral, this is what I want to happen.

I want there to be a big container of all sorts of random acts of kindness, and when people leave, I want them to take 1 and go do a random act of kindness in my honor.

But anyways, for that birthday, for that virtual birthday party, I just wanted to tell you this 1 little story.

She did this that week, and she had crocheted this scarf, she said.

She had gone through her lines several times in the past and the lady was always so pleasant and friendly.

When my friend gave this scarf to her, she got tears in her eyes and told her that her grandmother used to make stuff like this.

She said no 1 in her family crochets and she didn't have anything left from her that her grandmother had made.

But then she proceeded to tell her that that very day was her birthday.

And so Tina, my friend, had been trying to decide who to give this to all along.

She'd had it in her acts of kindness bag since the beginning of the week, and so today she put it in her purse, and God directed her to exactly the right person to give it to.

And so that just is such a neat experience.

So ever since I turned 40 and I started doing that, every year I do something for others on my birthday.

I have a couple more that I'm gonna share with you.

Alright, so the next 1 I wanted to tell you about, and I'm telling you about a few of mine because I want you to know this just not just for kids.

So my kids are really good about helping me celebrate my birthday.

So this was obviously birthday number 42 and that year I gave away 42 things and I won't tell you about all of them, but there were things like non-perishable food items, toiletries, I made homemade soup and gave jars of it away, cookies, like I said, it's in Christmas, so I gave some small poinsettias away, And the most fun I had was this.

03 Celebrating “the Holidays” in a Secular World

Heavenly Father, we thank you so much for another new day.

And Lord, we thank you for the cool air inside when it's so hot.

But Lord, we just thank you for the many blessings that we've received here at Camp Meeting.

And we just pray that you will just continue to pour out your Spirit, Lord, and that we will go away changed and ready to serve you.

All right, so before we get into our topic for today, we're going to do a couple little housekeeping items, because I don't know what I've explained and what I haven't explained.

Monday was kind of a whirlwind with all the problems that I had.

So I just want to explain to you where you get the materials for all these little glow track packs when you make them.

So not all of them, but a lot of them I put in little baggies just to keep everything together.

So recently I've been buying the 4x5 reclosable baggies, and that's what I Google when I do it.

I've been getting them on Amazon, and I can get a thousand for, it used to be $33, I just looked and it's $38 now.

Somebody else just mentioned that they get them at Websterraunt, is that what we, it's a Webster.

It's not a different size, I'm not gonna tell you.

Websterraunt is something else that you could check out.

I have purchased them at Joanne's before.

That's where I used to get them in the very beginning.

But then there are 4 by 4 by 5 bags seem to get just a little smaller, and I was having trouble zipping the top.

But the other thing, too, if you order GloTracks from the conference, they probably don't want to give you thousands, but they would give you a few bags of 100 if you ask.

Right, they don't just put them in, you would have to ask.

You can call the conference, you can email the publishing department, or you can go to GloCentral.

Just Google it and it will take you to a place where you can order stuff, glow tracks, online.

And then for the cards, you can make your own.

There is no saying that you have to use these, but if you can't print your own or you don't feel comfortable making your own, you can have kids make little cards, but you can also go, at the end of this presentation there will also be that page that has my website, FindingJoyForEternity.com.

Actually it's written on the bottom of this as well.

You can't get bags from me, but you can get the cards.

Some of them are up there, they're not all there.

Or you can order them, and I'll print them and cut them and send them to you if that works better for you.

So, and then, let me just give you a tip about putting these together too.

And you know what, you don't have to do it this way, but this is the way I try to train people to do it.

It's not a big deal, but the card should face out 1 way, and the glow track should face out the other way.

And then if I can, sometimes if you have apple cider or something big, I have to put it in the back so you don't block the card.

But if the item is small, then it just goes in front because it usually coordinates with the card.

So there is that little bit of information.

And then just the 2 websites that I have.

You'll see them at the end of my seminar again, but the blog was BibleLabs.Blogspot.com and the difference, that just has all the things that I've done over the years.

Back to Menu

Series

Creative Outreach for Everyday Life

01 A Lifestyle of Service

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Parts

01 A Lifestyle of Service

30m

02 The Gift of Giving

39m

03 Celebrating “the Holidays” in a Secular World

48m

04 Called to Serve I

55m

05 Called to Serve II

57m

Sound Doctrine