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When I was a child, my mother would often send me on an errand to get this or that from the local grocers. My dictionary defines an ‘errand’ as a short trip to convey a message or do a particular task. It is something we do for others and it is a way of serving them. I used to love doing errands because I felt useful. Also, it has to be admitted, I sometimes got to keep the change so it wasn’t always altruistic! In fact, doing an errand can be as beneficial to the one doing it as to the one who does the sending. You feel you are doing good for someone and yet you also feel good about yourself. There’s a kind of parallel here with spreading the Good News of Jesus Christ. As the Church we have a special responsibility not only to live by the principles of Jesus but also to share our insights and experience of God’s love with others. For some—me included, I suppose—it includes fulfilling a particular role as a Christian leader. For others, as St. Paul tells us, it includes those who teach the faith or who care for the sick or who give other forms of assistance to people. Very little of this is dramatic. It is faithful rather than spectacular service which truly proclaims the Gospel. When we put ourselves out for others or when we do some act of kindness and love, we are putting into practice our Christian faith. Knowing God loves us is a powerful incentive to share that with others. Again it is done most often in simple ways. In fact, doing an errand for someone can be as much an act of loving evangelism as any of those powerful evangelists who capture our emotions in spectacular ways. Jesus gave some stirring evangelistic teaching to the crowds but it was often in his one-to-one dealings with individuals that he changed their lives. Today God needs lots of errand-goers. He has a message to send to people and he wants us to share in the particular task of loving people into His Kingdom. One of the aims of a Faith & Skill Audit is to look at how we can serve God better. It isn’t big things He wants from us but rather lots of little things done with a big love. Skills we can offer but if Faith and Love of God are behind their use then we are going to be blessed as we take God’s blessing to others. We all benefit! Here’s a prayer I love, which was written by some 3rd World Christians: O Lord, you are King of our spirits. You have issued orders to your subjects to do a great work. You have commanded us to preach the Gospel to every creature. We are going on that errand now. Let your presence go with us; Enliven us and enable us to persevere in your great work until the day we die. |