A Brilliant Idea
Five years ago the leadership of West Valley Presbyterian Church met to discuss next steps for the health of the church. We all agreed that we had a problem.
Doing the same thing over and over on a Sunday morning was only appealing to the same set of people again and again. The mission of the church to do outreach coined in our statement of purpose “to know Christ and make Him known” was not being fulfilled on a regular basis beyond our walls.
That is when the decision was made to cancel our regular Sunday morning worship service on a quarterly basis and, in place of the traditional service, worship by serving others. That is how the phrase “Service Worship Sunday” came into being. We remembered Jesus’ statement “Whatever you do to the least of these my children, you do it unto me,” (Matthew 25:40) and we recognized that by showing compassion and mercy to those around us, we were glorifying God and worshipping in a whole new way. Helping others in tangible ways was something un-churched people could understand. Again and again, as we engaged in community service on Sunday mornings we heard observers tell us, “This is so wonderful. This is what the church should be doing.”
Of course, there were many unknowns as we got started. We weren't sure how the congregation would react, and we had no idea how we were going to find enough community service projects for everyone to engage in on a Sunday morning. Still we were confident that it was the direction that the Holy Spirit was leading. For the most part, people in the church responded with cautious optimism. It was worth “giving it a try”. Five years later we are still going strong. We also discovered a host of opportunities available to us on Sundays - from feeding over 150 homeless people at CityTeam, to stocking and cleaning the food bank at the local community service center. We cleaned up yards for senior citizens, knitted caps for cancer patients, helped Habitat build a home, assisted a local school with a garden for children, provided a worship service for a nursing home etc. The list goes on and on. On any given Service Worship Sunday we have about 15 projects were the congregation can serve.
Not only has Service Worship benefited the larger Cupertino/San Jose community but, as we had hoped, it has benefited us as a faith community as well. We have grown in our relationships with one another as we have served together with a common purpose. No longer are we reaching the same people over and over again. New people have joined our church because of the Service Worship program. There is a growing awareness now of the services we provide and non-profits are calling us now to see if we might be available for various needs.
The best part? Everything we do, we do in the name of Jesus Christ for his glory and honor. We think people can understand God’s love for them a little bit better when we stop talking about God in our churches, and start putting his love into action in our communities.
Five years ago the leadership of West Valley Presbyterian Church met to discuss next steps for the health of the church. We all agreed that we had a problem.
Doing the same thing over and over on a Sunday morning was only appealing to the same set of people again and again. The mission of the church to do outreach coined in our statement of purpose “to know Christ and make Him known” was not being fulfilled on a regular basis beyond our walls.
That is when the decision was made to cancel our regular Sunday morning worship service on a quarterly basis and, in place of the traditional service, worship by serving others. That is how the phrase “Service Worship Sunday” came into being. We remembered Jesus’ statement “Whatever you do to the least of these my children, you do it unto me,” (Matthew 25:40) and we recognized that by showing compassion and mercy to those around us, we were glorifying God and worshipping in a whole new way. Helping others in tangible ways was something un-churched people could understand. Again and again, as we engaged in community service on Sunday mornings we heard observers tell us, “This is so wonderful. This is what the church should be doing.”
Of course, there were many unknowns as we got started. We weren't sure how the congregation would react, and we had no idea how we were going to find enough community service projects for everyone to engage in on a Sunday morning. Still we were confident that it was the direction that the Holy Spirit was leading. For the most part, people in the church responded with cautious optimism. It was worth “giving it a try”. Five years later we are still going strong. We also discovered a host of opportunities available to us on Sundays - from feeding over 150 homeless people at CityTeam, to stocking and cleaning the food bank at the local community service center. We cleaned up yards for senior citizens, knitted caps for cancer patients, helped Habitat build a home, assisted a local school with a garden for children, provided a worship service for a nursing home etc. The list goes on and on. On any given Service Worship Sunday we have about 15 projects were the congregation can serve.
Not only has Service Worship benefited the larger Cupertino/San Jose community but, as we had hoped, it has benefited us as a faith community as well. We have grown in our relationships with one another as we have served together with a common purpose. No longer are we reaching the same people over and over again. New people have joined our church because of the Service Worship program. There is a growing awareness now of the services we provide and non-profits are calling us now to see if we might be available for various needs.
The best part? Everything we do, we do in the name of Jesus Christ for his glory and honor. We think people can understand God’s love for them a little bit better when we stop talking about God in our churches, and start putting his love into action in our communities.
