Dan is passionate about helping the church to re-neighbor through Asset Based principles.
Polis Institute developed a curriculum in 2008 aptly named Dignity Serves which trains people in Asset Based Ministry among the most needy.
Dignity Serves is a six lesson interactive study that
teaches you how to properly engage the talents of the poor in the context of a
Dignified Interdependent relationship.
The goal is to move closer relationally and
geographically to people in distress and through Dignified Interdependent
relationships begin to do Asset Based Ministry
together.
For more info you can go here: http://polisinstitute.org/dignityserves.html
Culture of Service
The culture of service of how we serve our neighbor is broken.
The culture of service of how we serve our neighbor is broken.
Jesus modeled the perfect way of serving our neighbor. Chris Tomlin has a line in his song, “I Will Follow” that goes, “How you serve, I’ll serve.” I would argue that we don’t do this well. We fail to serve how Jesus serves. Often times the way we serve our neighbor is broken.
Even though we try and serve with pure motives, our efforts are often selfish, shortsighted and controlling. This is true in all types of relationships, whether it be our spouses, family, close friends or, in particular, people in need.
It’s interesting that, of all the stories Jesus could use about what it means to love our neighbor as ourselves, he tells of a Samaritan who shows mercy to a Jewish man left for dead in a ditch. The Samaritan didn’t flinch at getting dirty and bloody to save the Jew. I would argue that, in order to truly love our neighbors as ourselves, we must risk getting dirty and bloody.
“Charity work”— the act of giving money, goods or time to the unfortunate -- too often fails to do this. “Charity work” separates and keeps us safe. Charity is needed in times of crisis. But when it becomes the norm it is unhealthy.
You see, when it comes to the poor, we often sacrifice genuine relationships with those in need of charity. It is one-way giving. While our efforts to help one another seem genuine and well-intended, they often have unintended consequences. It is only in close proximity, relationally and geographically, that we can truly understand the need and how the Holy Spirit wants us to respond.
Dignity Serves speaks well to these issues, as do many other resources. I believe we constantly need correctives in our lives to get back to the way God intended us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Dignity Serves is one such corrective. A paragraph in Dignity Serves describes this beautifully:
"We sacrifice relationship for the sake of efficiency and tend to so because there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what true, biblical service should look like—we often do not simply do know what to do. We see a real need, it breaks our heart, and we respond in a way that seems right, feels right, and for which we often receive praise. And we tend to do so in a way that provides the greatest amount of stuff to the largest number of people in the shortest amount of time.” (Dignity Serves, 2010)
So what does it mean for the Culture of Service to be redeemed?
- · We move closer, relationally and geographically, to those experiencing distress.
- · We see people as what they are, image bearers of God, rather than what they lack.
- · Through close proximity, we discover what people desire to do and respond accordingly to the spirit.
- · We listen well to those God has placed in our path.
- · We realize all the systemic issues that come into factor when serving people in need.
- · We realize that it is God, not us, who changes those we are called to serve.
- · We realize that the person we are called to serve is far more important than them changing.
This list, of course, is not exhaustive, and we continue to learn what Jesus calls us to. But we believe that moving in this direction begins to redeem the Culture of Service to what God originally intended.
