My Fellow Americans

How have you been serving in the church that you currently attend? With the kids? In the kitchen? Teaching a bible study? Cleaning the toilets? Have you been serving at all? If you aren’t regularly serving in your church, then are you really a member of the body? If you are not helping the body in some way, you’re really more like a tumor than a helpful, functioning body part aren’t you? If you just show up for the late service, enjoy the music and the sermon, shake a few hands, and then leave – you are not being an active part of the body like you have been called to.

President John F. Kennedy, in one of the most famous speeches in American history proclaimed these profound words:

My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.  - John F. Kennedy

The New Testament talks about how believers are all different parts of the body of Christ and each part needs the other (1 Corinthians 12, Romans 5). The eyes need the feet to move, the feet the need the eyes to see, only the nose can smell and only the ears can hear, and without any part of the body, no matter how seemingly small, trivial, or insignificant, the body would not be whole. But a tumor is a part of the body that is taking up nutrients and space in the body, but offering the body nothing in return. It doesn’t belong there. It isn’t really a part of the body if it does not serve or benefit the body in any way.

If you are not serving your church, and you just show up to the late service, sit back and enjoy the show, and then leave, you are not benefitting the body of Christ in any way. You are selfishly sucking up nutrients offered by the body without offering anything beneficial to everyone else in return. Its about time that the American church hears something like this: My fellow Americans, ask not what your church can do for you, ask what you can do for your church. To truly be a part of a church, THE Church, we must serve. Jesus himself did not come to be served, but to serve. We must share that heart and mindset. We must not come to be served, but to serve. We must offer the body what God has gifted us with. We must stop being selfish, lazy spectating, nutrient sucking tumors of a people, and become active members of the body of Christ that expect to serve and not be served.