In this talk, we share a compelling narrative on the transformative power of living a life of service. Drawing from personal experiences and biblical teachings, Matt uncovers how serving others not only contributes to our spiritual formation but also leads us towards a life filled with purpose and fulfilment. This talk is a must-listen for anyone looking to deepen their spiritual journey and discover the secret ingredient to becoming more like Jesus.

Key Highlights:

1. The Unexpected Journey: This story beautifully illustrates how God often meets us in unexpected places, leading us towards a path of wholeness and purpose.
2. Biblical Blueprint for Service: An exploration of Paul's letter to the Philippian Church and how it outlines the essence of Christian service – humility and valuing others above oneself. Matt delves into the mindset of Christ Jesus as the ultimate model for service.
3. Transformation Through Service: A deep dive into how serving acts as a catalyst for personal transformation, refining our motives, shaping our character, and deepening our relationship with God.
4. Practical Ways to Serve: In today's fast-paced world, finding time to serve might seem challenging. Matt offers practical advice on integrating service into our daily lives, making it a natural extension of our being rather than an additional task.
5. The Impact of Serving on Spiritual Formation: Matt discusses the profound impact that living a life of service has on our spiritual formation, drawing us closer to God and helping us become more like Jesus.
6. Challenge to Serve: The talk concludes with a challenge to the listeners to conduct a "serving audit" in their lives, encouraging them to identify opportunities to serve others and experience the transformation that comes with it.

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Join us as we explore the pivotal role of service in our spiritual journey and how it shapes us into individuals who reflect the heart and character of Christ. Discover the secret ingredient to spiritual formation and embark on a transformative journey of serving others.

For more insights and to explore further, connect with us at www.crowd.church and dive into a community passionate about living out the teachings of Jesus in practical, impactful ways.

Welcome to this week's Crowd Church service.

We are a digital church on a quest to discover how Jesus helps

us live a more meaningful life.

We are a community, a space to explore the Christian faith and a place

where you can contribute and grow.

Our service will last about an hour and in a few seconds you'll

meet our hosts for our service who will introduce today's talk.

After the talk, we will have a time of worship and reflection, after which we

head into Conversation Street, where we look at your stories and questions

that you've posted in the comments.

Now we want to invite you to connect with us here at Crowd Church, and we've got a

few ways in which you can do just that.

Firstly, you can engage with Crowd from any device during our live

stream, and if you're up for it.

Why not invite a few friends over and experience the service together?

Church is all about connecting with God and connecting with others,

and one of the easiest ways for you to do that is join one of our mid

week groups where we meet up online together to catch up and discover

more about the amazingness of Christ.

You can also subscribe to our fairly new podcast called What's The Story,

where we deep dive into stories of faith and courage from everyday people.

More information about All of these things can be found on our website at www.

crowd.church.

Or you can reach out to us on social media at Crowd Church if you are new to Crowd or

new to the Christian Faith and would like to know what your next steps to take on.

But we're not.

Head over to our website, crowd.church/next, for more details.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for is here.

Our online church service starts right now.

Evening all.

Good evening, nice to see everyone.

Yes,

we were just saying as the sort of the music was building,

I felt a little bit like cool.

Someone should be like doing our makeup and getting ready for

use itself as a news anchor.

Everyone.

I need,

I need some papers to go Trevor McDonald for those.

Not in the UK.

You have to YouTube.

Yeah.

Trevor McDonald.

He's a legend.

So Palm Sunday, isn't it?

It

is, yeah.

Yeah.

Happy Palm Sunday everyone.

Yes.

It came up right here.

I might have to Oh, this,

we're really slick.

Yeah, we're really slick here.

Unfortunately.

Know.

Yeah.

Palm Sunday, so Yeah.

The week before Easter.

Yeah.

One week to go.

Yeah.

And so next week John Harden's gonna be talking.

Doing at Easter.

A service for us would be awesome.

Easter special.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That would be good.

So a pause from the usual Yes.

Series that we've been following.

But yeah, for next week,

Easter's.

Whether you're whether you follow like the Christian calendar or not, Easter

is the most important thing that ever happened to this world, isn't it?

It's a big deal.

It is a big deal.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

Somebody send Dan some new earphones, everyone.

He's going to be like I've got tiny little

ears.

These are made for Matt's slightly bigger ears.

I need to get some smaller earbuds.

They just don't fit in.

It's what you call first world problems, isn't it?

It is, yeah.

So what's happening today then, Dan?

Tell

us.

Yes, so today Matt is talking to us about Acts of Service,

following on in our series.

So yeah, really looking forward to that.

That's going to be good.

That's going to be good.

And as we mentioned next week, Dave Connolly I'm doing what Matt

gave us a incorrect order last week.

I was about to do the same thing this week.

Matt talking this week and then John Harding next week, Easter.

And then Dave Connolly after that, we'll be continuing the series.

Perfect.

Yeah.

Oh, I'm having a bit of a problem.

It's the talking as well.

It makes your ears

move and then they just.

Isn't this correct?

Ears move when you talk?

Maybe.

Tell us everyone.

Anyone watching out there, tell us your ears move when you speak?

I don't know.

I don't know.

These are the important issues that we cover off in Crowd Church, aren't they?

Anyway.

Yes.

Good to see people on the comments.

Yeah, Matt says, yeah, any one of us, we do.

Yeah, I'll get some moulded to my ears, to my tiny ears.

Yeah, maybe that's the solution.

Have you had a good

weekend?

A good day today?

Yeah, you know what?

Yesterday we hung out with some friends, Jack and Jenny, some

of the pastors in our church.

They're little boys the same age as our little boys.

So that was nice hanging out.

Today we had church this morning and, you were saying it was a

very busy service, wasn't it?

Yeah, it was really busy because there were some baptisms.

Yeah, quite a few, there must have been,

I said there's about 20 or something?

Yeah, I'm not quite sure how many.

Yeah, we, so we in our church, we've got our congregation, then

there's a Polish congregation and an Iranian congregation as well.

All normally have different services, different times, different languages.

But we all came together for the baptismal service, so it was

quite busy, and there was lots

of extra guests as well, they'd come just to see

friends and family get baptised.

But we should probably add that they're separate services because of the language.

Yes, we don't just segregate.

So they're Iranian speaking, it's not that Iranians can't come

to the English speaking church, it's just that.

It's a language thing.

Yeah, a language

barrier thing.

Yeah, so that was good.

And then this afternoon, we've just been hanging out and chilling at home.

Yesterday so I did some skiing with my little boy.

He's learning to ski at the moment.

Very nice.

On the indoor ski centre in Manchester near us.

So yeah, that was fun.

Proper snow.

Proper indoor.

Yeah, indoor

snow in Manchester at the Genufactor.

Yeah, product placement for Genufactor, sorry everyone.

Crowd brought to you by Indoor Fake Snow.

We could do a sponsorship, couldn't we?

Maybe we'd

get free passes.

Yeah.

Anyway, we're deviating off the point.

We should probably play the video, shouldn't we?

I think we should

play the video.

We're going to play the talk now from Matt.

If you've got any questions please just send them.

Send them in and we'll endeavour to answer them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Post if you have any thoughts as well.

Without further ado,

I'm going to use this box here rather than clicking the mouse.

Check me out.

Do it.

Have you ever found yourself in a place

you never expected to be?

Only to discover it's exactly where you needed to be.

I have many types.

Like for example, when I took a gap year before heading to

university, I ended up volunteering.

At a place called Nazareth Children's Home, which is in North Carolina.

Now, I was not a Christian at this point, but if I look back, I can definitely see

that God orchestrated the whole affair.

I got to hang out with and serve with these amazing kids and staff, but these

kids, for whatever reason, couldn't live with their families, and it wasn't

where I personally planned to be.

It wasn't where I expected to be, but it was where I needed to

be because it was here that God met me and I became a Christian.

It was in this place where my personal journey to wholeness began.

But it all started with me serving.

Now, Paul, when he wrote to the Philippian Church, wrote this, he said, Do nothing

out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility, value others above yourself, not

looking to your own interests.

But each of you, to the interest of the others, in your relationships with

one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus, who, being the very nature

God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own

advantage, rather he made himself equal.

Nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.

Sometimes, when reading a scripture, all you can do is just go, wow, right?

We are told as Christians to have the same mindset as Jesus.

Which tells me that's possible, another story.

But the same mindset as Jesus, who, though he was God, and let's

face it, that's a pretty big deal, still made himself a servant.

Regardless of our position, we should still take on.

The position of a servant, which is a pretty powerful statement.

Serving then is a transformational journey that shapes who we are and aligns

us to the heart of our servant God.

And so that's what we're going to look at today.

I want to ask a few questions like, how does living a life of service

contribute to our spiritual formation?

How does it actually make us whole?

Why is Jesus so focused on us serving others and what does living a life

of service actually look like in the day to day, especially if we

are busy and maxed out already?

Can I get an amen?

Now, these are all great questions, right?

Because when we understand the answers, man alive, do we start to see how serving

is essential to becoming more and more like Jesus, to becoming more and more

whole as it transforms both the server.

And those served.

That's what I discovered in North Carolina.

I helped the kids, but I got transformed in the process, right?

Which all sounds fantastic, but I think we can often find ourselves in

places where what we do just seems to vanish into the ether, where what

we do goes unnoticed, or maybe even.

Unappreciated.

Ever had that happen to you?

I know I have on a regular basis where maybe the thanks I thought I deserved

didn't come to pass but you know we've all been disheartened haven't we?

We've all been discouraged because what we do goes unnoticed.

We don't get that thanks that maybe we thought we should get.

In fact, we can often get the opposite.

We can get complaints and this may be because.

We have poor boundaries in place.

So if that's you, I recommend reading Henry Cloud's book, Boundaries.

And yes, it might also be our managers, whether at church, whether

at work, who might be utterly useless in positive affirmation in terms

of positively affirming what we do.

But often, I find it comes down to my motive.

And this is an ouch, because motive starts in my heart and not in the

thanks that I think I should get.

Sometimes our motive might be seen, or sorry, let me put this a different way.

Our motive might be to be seen.

This is what Caesar Kalinowski calls the do to be lie.

If we head back, for example, to the Garden of Eden, The devil promised that if

Adam and Eve did something, they would be something, eat the fruit and be like God.

Do to be.

And it was a lie, a massive lie, that Adam and Eve bought Hook, Line and Stinker.

Haha, Line and Stinker, I like that.

And we are still doing it today.

Now, we find ourselves believing that our worth is measured by our

works, our identity shaped by our achievements, and that we have to do

something in order to be something.

That to be someone of value, we must do more, serve more, achieve more.

But when we believe that, it feels like pain.

Feels like we're on a treadmill that goes faster, the faster that we go,

and we're trying to keep up, but it's going faster and we're going nowhere.

And so we're stuck, exhausted, and unfulfilled.

Here's the thing.

Adam and Eve were already enough.

God made them enough.

He has made you enough.

We don't serve to earn God's favour and hope that if we do enough good

things, God will make us righteous.

That's the do to be lie.

I have to do to be righteous.

Instead, God flips the whole script and he's already made us righteous.

We talked about this in the series.

God cannot love you anymore, He is maxed out already, so we serve

not to be, but to genuinely help bring God's kingdom on earth.

So how does then living a life of service contribute to our spiritual formation?

Let's look at that, because as we read through scripture, we see that serving

others is not just about the acts we perform, but it's about the transformation

that happens deep within us as we serve.

What happened to me in North Carolina.

Which is good news, when you think about it, because as we are talking about

serving in the context of wholeness.

Serving, then, becomes key.

Whole people serve, and people who serve become whole, as serving is

established on two key principles of the Kingdom of God, humility and love.

The Bible tells us this, to serve one another, Humbly in love, Paul

talking to the church in Galatians.

Now humility then teaches us to look beyond ourselves, to see the needs

and the values of others as equal, if not more important than our own.

Then there's love, the driving force and motivation of serving.

Love gives without seeking anything in return.

It's as though God is using our hands and our feet to extend his love.

To others, we get to be a part of that, which is incredible, it's a privilege,

and I don't always see serving in that way, if I'm honest, often it

can feel like a chore, so I have to remind myself that what I'm doing is a

privilege, and it is in fact very godly.

That's why serving is a key contributor to spiritual formation.

It challenges us, and it gets rid of our inherent selfishness by replacing it with

a spirit of generosity and compassion.

And as we serve, our motives are refined, hopefully, and our character

is shaped, hopefully, and our relationship with God is deepened.

Which all sounds wonderful.

Wonderful, Jesus put it this way, whoever would be great among you must

be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of

all, for even the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to

give his life as a ransom for many.

That's a powerful statement, isn't it, from Jesus.

Again, you've just got to go, wow, right?

Jesus tells us that greatness is all about serving, which kind of turns

the whole success, the success, can't even say it, the whole success

ladder on its head, doesn't it?

The way up in the kingdom of God is, it seems, astonishingly, The highest honour

is achieved not by towering over others, but by lifting others above ourselves,

which is, as they say, revolutionary.

So what does Jesus mean by this phrase, being great?

If you want to be great in God's kingdom.

It's someone who is esteemed, and excellent, and splendid, and

stately, according to Strong.

Love that.

Splendid and stately.

Essentially, it's a person who is biblically whole.

Trusted and used by God for his plans and purposes.

Which, as Christians, should be, in theory, what we're all after, right?

So what would our world look like if we pursued greatness,

wholeness, through serving?

What would my life look like if I truly got a hold of this principle?

And it's a hard question to ask yourself.

Because even knowing that we might be taken advantage of, Jesus still

challenges us to take the leap that biblical wholeness is about giving

first and letting God take care of the rest to serve is to love and to

love is to serve so why is Jesus so focused on this whole serving thing Why?

Why is this a big deal for God?

See, from healing the sick and feeding the hungry, to comforting those

who mourn, to washing his disciples feet, Jesus's every action reflected

a heart devoted to serving others.

I have not come to be served, I have come to be loved.

I have come to serve, he said.

Now these are the words that Jesus said to his disciples after famously

washing their stinky dirty feet.

Now let me tell you, it does not sound fun today, does it,

washing somebody else's feet.

But it was definitely not fun back then when you think about it.

Open sandals, everything that would be on their feet, if don't wanna

spoil your dinner, but I would not wanna wash those stinky, dirty feet.

But this is what Jesus said after he did that.

Do you understand what I've done to you?

You address me as teacher and master and rightly that is what I am.

So if I, the master and teacher washed your feet, you must

now wash each other's feet.

I've laid down a pattern for you.

What I've done you do.

I'm only pointing out the obvious.

A servant is not ranked above his master.

An employee doesn't give orders to the employer.

If you understand what I'm telling you, act like it and live a blessed life.

So in other words Jesus was so focused on serving others because he wanted to

lay down a pattern for us to follow.

Why what he did why we should do that?

Why should I wash somebody else's feet?

Not necessarily walk down the street watching other people's feet.

You get the point, right?

The one task that no one wanted to do, Jesus did.

And it's that, the humbling of yourself.

Why?

Because when we do, we are blessed.

In other words, we find wholeness.

Serving transforms the server.

It's a double whammy, a genuine win.

We bless others and in so doing we are blessed, we are

transformed, we become whole.

That's why Jesus was so focused on it, to help you become whole.

So what does living a life of service look like in practical terms,

especially if we don't have the time?

It's a very genuine question I think in the modern age.

Now I know that many of us want to serve as Jesus commands us to but we do live

in this world which spins faster and faster with every passing day where the

proverbial New York Minute, if you like, is now a global phenomenon everywhere.

We are working longer, we are working harder, and it is relentless.

So we feel guilty for not spending enough time with the kids, or we

don't have the energy to hit the gym.

We have priorities and commitments coming out of our ears.

How do we even begin to think about finding the time to serve?

The very uncomfortable truth here is that we have to come to terms with, we

all have the same 24 hours in the day.

We are all equal in terms of time.

Time is not affected by my position, by my race, by my gender, by my nationality.

It's not.

It's not.

It's not impacted by any of that.

We all have 24 hours in the day.

Once it's spent, it's gone.

And there is no secret out there that is going to give us more time.

So what that means is I have to be intentional in how I spend my time.

In other words, I have to prioritize.

And let's face it, we don't the word prioritize.

I don't because it means making choices.

that I don't really want to make, normally prioritizing means giving up something

hopefully better in the future, right?

Different things, different people, but in my head, and if I'm really

honest, I can get all kinds of creative with my excuses, about how

this whole thing doesn't apply for me.

I can spend some time and come up with something great I run my own

business, I work crazy hours, I already do this over here, or I

need some me time, some me time.

I have to take the kids to football training.

The list is both endless.

Endless and actually quite genuine all legitimate and there are definite seasons

that I think we go through in life where we have to pull back from other things.

I get it and I think it's essential that we do that.

God's okay with that.

I have those same internal battles all the time but I do have to be honest with

myself about them and I do have to be intentional with my time but beyond that.

I think Jesus shows us something a little different.

I think he shows us that serving others isn't just about finding more

time in our already packed schedules.

It's about serving in the moment.

And we have those.

Every day, all the time, Jesus's ministry was often about moments

of genuine connection in the midst of his day to day journey.

Whether it was a conversation with a Samaritan woman at a well or a healing as

he's walking to a different destination.

Jesus showed us that to serve can and should be part of everyday life.

And it's in these small acts of kindness and the moments of listening

that we find some incredible.

Serving, I don't think it is just about what we do between the hours of 7pm and

8pm on a Thursday night at our local church, or maybe on a Sunday morning.

They may well be events that we could sign up for and help with, and maybe we should.

But I think serving is much more about prioritising time, and it

is about prioritising the person in front of us in that time.

Practically, what are some of the things that we can do?

I think we start by asking ourselves three questions.

Number one, what has God put on our heart to do?

Number two, what are the talents that God has given me?

And number three, where can I help in a Christian community?

First, ask, what has God put on my heart to do?

Then I think you look for areas in your community where you can do just that.

And this can be super practical, like Matt who is often on the live streams will go

litter picking in his local neighbourhood.

Dion serves with sign language.

You could visit or be friendly elderly or the sick or help single parents who

are struggling to cope with life by cleaning their house or babysitting.

The list is endless because there are so many people around you in need of help.

Right now, there just is.

The second question, what are the talents that God has given me?

Me I think I'm okay at the whole business thing, having done it for a while.

I can serve in that area and mentor others.

But what about you?

What are your gifts?

Sharon, for example, is awesome at teaching English.

She gives her time to help refugees and asylum seekers learn the language.

But she also goes beyond that.

She helps them move furniture and fill out forms, all super practical

stuff, but often requires her to do stuff out of her working hours.

Now I know if you're a self employed electrician, for example, you have

to charge money for your services as you have to create an income.

I appreciate that you might want to keep work separate from everything else.

That's totally cool.

It's not a hard and fast rule, but I do guarantee that there

is someone in your community.

Who needs your help and who can't afford to pay you?

The question is, could you help?

Definitely no pressure, just a question.

So finally we then ask ourselves, where can I help in the Christian community?

You want to serve the Christian community, right?

You want to serve the wider community.

You want to serve both, okay?

As this demonstrates, I think the love of God, both inside and

outside the Christian community.

And again, it doesn't have to be super.

Complicated.

Oh no.

When our kids were born, for example, the church community were wonderful.

For several weeks, people would bring a meal to our house every night and

they would come in and do all kinds of things like cleaning, for example,

and that was such a massive blessing.

Simple and practical.

So my advice is this, to me as much as you, help where you can, roll

up your sleeves and get stuck in.

Prioritise your time and give some of that time back to God, bless

your local community and fellow believers and see what happens.

And of course, one of the biggest acts of service.

is simply to pray for people, to connect with them and then see how

they are doing, to encourage them.

The Bible talks about the ministry.

Ministry just means to serve, by the way, it's just a fancy word for serving.

So the act of serving through helps through being generous and through being

an encouragement, always we can serve.

So here's my challenge this week, over the next seven days, do what I

what I'm now calling a serving audit.

This isn't about crunching numbers like an accountant.

No.

This is about introspection.

This is about asking God in prayer, if there's anything, your service

to others that needs tweaking.

Thank you.

That didn't make sense.

Is there anything in your serving that needs tweaking?

That makes more sense.

Or perhaps maybe God's got an entire new serving venture for you.

Maybe he's nudging you towards something different.

Write it down.

Write what God is saying and share it with us.

Keep your eyes Peeled and your ears open to the needs of those around you.

And when you spot an opportunity to do good, don't hesitate, embrace it.

Do one small random act of service this week, at least one.

You can do more.

Don't just do one and stop.

You know what I'm saying, right?

And if you haven't done so already for some more information on this kind of

thing, I would recommend wholeheartedly listening to episode 22 of the What's

The Story Podcast, where I got to chat with Ed Walker who heads up HOPE

Interaction about how serving can take you on a whole new life adventure.

Let me tell you.

Now, I don't know about you, but I am enjoying this series on wholeness.

It's been great.

It's been great.

Edifying, it's building me up and it's deeply challenging all at the

same time, tends to be what happens when you get into the things of God.

But I tell you what, I do just, I just see Jesus in the whole thing and I'm

looking forward to what's coming up.

So make sure you subscribe if you haven't done so already.

Head to our website, www.

crowd.

church and fill in the little email form and every week we will email

you the notes to the live streams.

Don't want you to miss any of them, right?

So just sign up with your email and you'll be cool.

Now, before we go, one final story, because why not, right?

After university, I volunteered again.

I took another year out and I volunteered for our local church for this year.

And I just graduated in accounting.

I've been a Christian three years at this point three or four years.

And so I volunteered for the church, got involved with the church

finances amongst other things.

And I love that year, despite not really having any money, if I'm honest

with you, it was an experience that was both transformative and deeply

satisfying in ways that I hadn't really anticipated, if I'm honest with you.

But here's the kicker.

It was during that year.

That I met Sharon, the wonderful woman who would become my wife.

It was during that year that I got spend time with her as she was

doing a year team with the church.

It was in those moments that God spoke to me about going out with Sharon now.

If you know the story, sure, I engineered a few things along the

way, but because that's just who I am.

But let me tell you, if I hadn't have served, I don't know if we would have

spent that time together that we did.

Dating apps are okay, but for me, it was in serving that I met my future wife.

Something that I'm grateful for every single day.

There we go.

That was a great talk, wasn't it?

There was a lot in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I always love that.

My fingers are,

Aching from Dan's been like,

Scribbling, and I didn't even come with a pad of paper tonight, so

I've just had to rip a piece out of him.

Yeah, there was so much in that, I always really enjoy it when Matt

speaks, because he does pack a lot of content into the short talk, doesn't he?

But what really struck you?

What's one thing that jumps out at you, Dan?

I think again, just going back to what you said it well,

while Matt was talking he spoke to me and said, it's just, it is

very, Jesus was counter culture.

Yeah.

Imagine a leader now, imagine Prince Charles, Rishi Sunak just saying,

Oh yeah, I'll come around and I'll come around and clean your floor.

Yeah, I'll come around to do yeah, clean your feet or saying,

as an employer, We shouldn't be telling the employee what to do.

It's just, if you're an employer and you show your employee that

you can serve, how much more are they going to want to work for you?

It just, it makes sense, it doesn't it?

Even though it's upside down to what we normally think.

Yeah,

I think at the same time, everyone loves a leader who Walks of

talk, it's like people love a salt of the earth leader who's a person of the

people who like, will get down and do the ordinary things with their staff,

as well as sit in an ivory tower.

I think those kind of leaders are often respected, aren't they,

because

they know how to do that.

Yeah, there's, in the UK and probably all over the world,

you'll have these different types of TV programmes, and in the middle it might

be X Factor or something like that, in the middle, they'll have this sort

of emotional piece about this person who, I just used to stack shelves.

I don't want to do that anymore.

And I was a cleaner and I don't want to do now.

I get the chance to do this and it just it put to me.

I always see that and think nothing wrong with stacking shelves.

There's nothing wrong with being a cleaner.

Yeah, it's great to do a job and do it.

Yeah, and I think it just turning those things into What we're

always taught, oh no, go for the better life, go for the bigger job.

Serving's awesome.

And there's some jobs which are naturally that is what you do, isn't it?

It might be cleaning, might be doctor, something like that.

It's more of, yes, you're getting paid for it, but it is more of an act of service.

Yeah,

I think I always think of nurses.

I work in the health service work, I'm not a nurse, but I work alongside

a lot of nurses, and I just always think they're incredible people

who don't get paid ever so much, but just serve people all day long.

I know you get paid, but it's not easy, and it's quite

humble work in a lot of ways.

Yeah, I just think there's a lot of amazing people out there

that are really good at this.

But it is very countercultural, really, isn't it, in terms of what we're

taught by our culture like you say, gave the big job and lots of money.

Have someone to do all the menial tasks.

Yeah, the people that we really look up to are the people on stage with a

big platform, a big online following.

I love that verse that Matt started with that says, do

nothing out of selfish ambition.

And I just think, wow, that's, it's just such a high order, isn't it?

So much of what we do is selfish ambition, I want to have a nicer house.

I want a better quality of life.

I want more money in the bank.

I want to be more comfortable.

I want my kids to go to a better school or live in a better

neighborhood or all of that.

None of these things are wrong in themselves, but they all are

it's where, yeah.

Where is your motive?

Yeah, exactly.

It's about the heart.

And, but I think that second part, consider others more highly than yourself.

Yeah, that's the bit that matters, isn't it?

Yeah yeah,

yeah.

I think at the end, I wrote it down in the UK.

We always say instead of if I saw you in the street, I'd

say, Hi, how are you doing?

Yeah.

And you'd say, I'm fine.

Yeah.

And we are fine.

Thanks.

And that's the conversation.

We ask a question, how we're doing.

And we will reply, we're fine.

And you don't really want to know, nobody's got time to listen.

Yeah.

And I just thought in that, when Matt was saying, what could we

do this week in serving, perhaps me, I could be a bit more intentional

in my questions and in my listening.

So when someone says, I'm fine, just ask another question or How's work been?

What have you done?

Just to move that conversation to be in an automatic response

to actually caring and spending time thinking about someone else.

Yeah, because when we talk about serving, like Matt did make

this point, we often think about doing the big things like, it's great to do

those big projects, go and volunteer for a charity or a soup kitchen or

go and feed the homeless or help with some like youth work or something big.

But it's also those small moments.

I think I came across really well in this talk that you can actually really

serve people and encourage people and make a difference in someone else's day.

Thank you.

In those small moments.

Yeah.

But I think so much of it is about being present.

Like it's about, again, that intentionality, isn't it?

I think that word was mentioned and I think in order to do those

things, ask people how they are.

Yeah, you've got to be more present in the moment.

And I'm so often I'm terrible for this I'm always like half here, half checking

emails, waiting in a queue in the supermarket, but also doing something else

on my phone at the same time, catching up with something else and then I'm not fully

present to the person that's serving me.

I'm not having that conversation because I'm also somewhere else.

And that, that for me is a massive challenge in our

culture and in my own life.

If I could just be a bit more present in the moment, I might not miss these

opportunities Serve people in small ways.

Yeah,

yeah.

I think if you read the Gospels, there's so much out there where Jesus sees

people in that moment, doesn't he?

He doesn't ignore them.

He doesn't ignore the lady that came and just gave that small amount and put it

in the in the synagogue for her gift.

He wasn't just in his own world, he was watching all

those little things that happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's something that struck me.

I thought, yeah, I need to, Yeah.

I need to be more present.

Yeah, definitely.

And we've got, we have got loads of excuses and lots of them are valid.

In our working day, there's lots of things going on and we're

thinking about other stuff.

But sometimes there are times when That moment could be given over to the person

that we're with or we're standing next to.

We don't have to fill our time with fail videos or cats or whatever it might be.

Yeah, I think if we're all totally honest about ourselves.

Or Candy Crush

Saga.

In Matt's case.

Yeah, Candy Crush.

I got mentioned.

Yeah, I agree.

I think if we're all totally honest with ourselves, we're all busy, aren't we?

We're all super busy, but also we all waste some time like, you and I are

here tonight in Crowd Church and we could be doing something else with

our families this hour, couldn't we?

But we've chosen to serve in this way.

And that's you know, because we've not wasted this now

we're doing something else.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I,

and it's amazing that God, He asks us to do things and asks us

to serve, but there's always something that even there's that phrase or, don't

know what the parable, you can't do anything completely selfless because

it always gives back and serving is one of those things, no matter what

you do, you always learn, at the very least, you learn from it, don't you?

Or you might, like in Matt's case, you might find yourself a wife, or

even doing so, doing this for me, I'm not an outwardly, I'm not a person,

I'm not very good with my words and it's, I've been able to serve and do

something but God's helping me and I can use these skills in other places.

It's helping me finish my sentences.

I have to actually keep going and say something and not mumble, which

normally I do if I'm talking to people.

Different things can happen.

You can't mumble

on Crowd Church.

Yeah, no.

I, yeah, I loved what Matt said actually about that whole thing

of, We serve out of love and out of that overflow and overspill of

what God's done for us and his love.

And we're transformed and we want to partner with him and

transform the world around us.

But I also love the fact that you said that there is that transformation

in us that happens as we serve, that we become whole by serving.

And I think that's really true.

I wondered, have you got any examples of, I suppose that is one, isn't it?

In a small way of how you grow when you serve or you learn new things.

Yeah, definitely.

I wondered if you'd got any other examples of that?

Putting me, yeah.

Putting you on the spot.

On the spot.

One thing is that if I hadn't served in different ways, I

wouldn't get to meet people.

I very easily could just be quite insular.

For me, it's very easy to sit in the corner of a room.

Yeah.

And just

you're more naturally introverted as a person.

Yeah.

But serving and having to go out there, having to do at church I

in control of the PA on certain weeks.

And it means that I have to be out there and telling people,

oh, okay, I've gotta sound check.

You gotta do this.

Yeah.

And sometimes that can be, it's great to be able to serve but also has

taught me to be more forthright in what I'm saying and yeah it's great to be

able to do and I've never come away thinking, I wish I didn't do that job.

Volunteering almost

always gives you an opportunity to grow or

learn new skills or develop.

Some area of your character or your expertise, I think, but I also feel

like when you serve in kind of a context with God, like it's also an opportunity.

I think Matt touched on this for it to transform your heart as well.

So I think of example when our church Frontline used to run a outreach to

street sex workers and homeless people.

Called Streetwise and I used to go out once, just once a month on this van and we

used to give out like food and hot drinks and stuff to women who were out on the

streets at night and I think, that, that experience put me in a scenario meeting

people who's past, I would never meet people like that in my normal day job, in

my normal life and it gave me something that was totally out of my context and

normal life, but it also taught me to love people who really different to like my

life and had a really different background and to actually see who they were and

just have a real, it really gave me a compassion that I didn't have before for

people who had a really tough background, made me realize how blessed I was to have

the starting life that I did coming from a loving home, but also gave me so much

more compassion and grace for people who.

struggle in life, because perhaps they've come from really broken backgrounds.

And yeah, I think when you serve in these kind of, particularly out of

your comfort zone, it can't help but change you and change your heart.

And I think God grows and enlarges our perspective.

And that's a

really good thing.

God is love, isn't it?

I wrote that in capital letters that we're here, because God is love.

And Sometimes people don't see that God is love.

They might see preachers, they might see people preaching at them, they might

see in the media what is, what could be the truth, but to them it's just,

it's hitting them in the wrong place.

I used to help run like we'd give out teas and coffees.

To people at nighttime in Liverpool till about two in the morning.

So people go in clubbing those that were homeless as well.

And a lot of the clubbers would be like, why are you doing this?

Why don't you just give it to the, to give it to those that are homeless, but they'd

love having a hot cup of tea or coffee.

And so God, You might be going out for a fun night out, but God still loves

you and will happily talk to you and tell you about Jesus, but will happily

just say, here, have a cup of coffee.

And it's just a different experience of who God is.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I loved what Matt said at the end about like doing a.

Serving order, that's a really good idea.

I think somebody said, was it Nicola in the chat said before that sometimes

when you serve, you can feel like you're a bit taken advantage of or yeah, just

people use you as a bit of a doormat.

And I think that can be true.

Yeah.

It's sad when it happens, but it can happen.

And, but I think that was a really good point that Matt made, which was that

It's good to have a regular audit of your service and what you're doing.

That's not just about, that is bigger than just looking after

number one, like yourself.

And I really liked the idea of going away and thinking about it prayerfully

regularly and saying how much of my time am I serving others and what ways, and

is this still working or do I want to serve somewhere different for a while?

And I don't want to invest my time because we do have finite time, don't we?

Yeah, we get to choose how we invest every hour, every waking hour of our day.

I know we have to earn money and pay the bills, but outside

of that, in our personal time, it's up to us how we spend it.

And yeah I really like that idea of going away and thinking

what's working, what's not.

I'm definitely going to do that this week yeah, I'm going to do that too,

I think it's good, yeah, because you can just, you can't just keep

on taking more and more, that's the point we all have a limit, don't we?

Yeah, which I think I might see if that book's on Audible,

I do all my books when I'm driving around boundaries, because I think

we do have to, we have to be careful, because If we're just saying yes to

everything, then we will get burnt out.

But it's about always listening to what God's saying.

If he says do something, then we better listen up and do that.

But don't do stuff just because doing things won't get you closer to God.

Like we always say, you're good enough.

God can't love you anymore.

He loves you.

So much that he sent his son to die for you, he loves you, the

ultimate price he paid for you.

So doing things won't save you anymore.

But to just to do stuff just because we can, and because

we love others is just, yeah.

That's what he wants us to do.

I guess it's that do things out of love, rather than

do things to be loved, isn't it?

It's a subtle difference, but it's massive as well do things because

you know you're loved by God, to earn God's love, because you already have

it, and yeah, I think it's motive so important to consider, isn't it?

Also, not making excuses, like with saying I'm too busy or I haven't got

time, because I think we all know that we could spend less time scrolling on social

media and watching Netflix and what have

you.

Maybe that's just me.

All these talks the last few weeks of me and Matt talked and Dave

Connolly did the talk about fasting.

And it's the same, he's asked us at certain times to fast and do things,

but that fasting isn't, doesn't save us.

It's just, it's a request at certain times to do, it's not.

We don't have to do so many fasts, tick this off, I've done five

fasts therefore I'm a bit closer we can't make ourselves good enough,

it's only God that can make us

good enough.

Yeah.

But with serving, I feel like Matt said, it's a real privilege, so it's it's

not that I have to serve, it's that I get to serve God, and that is actually

a privilege, it's a fun thing I love doing this, I love some of the other

ways I serve through the week, I love different things that I do and different

acts of service, I love that I get to partner with God in small ways, that

is a privilege and I don't have to do it, I get to do it and that's great.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So yeah Active Service Audit, I think.

Yeah.

This week.

Do one this week.

Yeah.

And next week we're going to hear from John about Easter.

Yeah.

And there'll be lots of, lots of Easter eggs around lots of chocolate, but not

very much talking about the real Easter.

So come and come along and have a listen to what this is.

When you're

in your kind of chocolate camera around 6pm.

Come and see what the real reason the new life,

not the little bunnies and eggs.

It's this transformation life, the life that can only become.

You can only get through Jesus dying for us.

Yeah.

Resurrection Sunday next week.

Yeah.

And then also we've got a midweek Alpha, haven't we, at the moment,

that's running, which we should probably

plug before.

Yeah, so if you're interested in alpha, interested in finding out

more about Christianity, becoming a Christian, then just go to crowd.

church, sign up.

And we'll yeah, we'll send over the information.

Yeah, exactly.

It's like a, it's a course and that's just, yeah, and you can jump in, you don't

need to start.

At the beginning, you can always catch up and just jump in where, and

I think it's basically like a short talk on a subject like prayer or

how do I know God is real or just basic questions about Christianity for people

who want to just learn a bit more and then you get an opportunity in a small group

to have a bit of a discussion about it.

Afterwards, and that's great because everyone comes with a

different point of view and you just get to thrash around questions.

What we're doing now, but a bit more, a lot

more in depth.

So

yeah, Alpha is really good.

I haven't done one in years, but I did do one a long time ago.

And I just think it's really helpful, really worth doing.

Definitely.

And if you've got any prayer requests please send them in.

Lots of people have sent in requests and we've got a WhatsApp group To

capture those and to do it so we can as hosts we can be praying for you.

Yeah, so yeah, please do we'd love to.

And if you enjoy podcasts, we should also mention the

podcast, so we've got, there's plenty

out there, keep going in for hours, yeah,

it's new, we're releasing podcast every week or so, where someone

just talks about their life story and yeah, there's some really great ones

out there, so if you're looking for podcast content, something to listen

to in a week, check that out as well,

subscribe,

Yeah.

Yeah.

So lots of good things going on.

Yeah.

And then Matt Crew's just added, have a great Easter, everyone.

The story doesn't end on Friday, Sunday is coming, isn't it?

Yeah.

Very true.

Yeah.

But yeah.

Thank you very much, everyone.

And we will see you next

week.

See you next week, everyone.

Take care.

Have a good week.

Thank you so much for joining us here on Crowd Church.

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It has been awesome.

Awesome to connect with you and you are awesome.

It's just a burden you have to bear and hopefully we'll see you next time.

That's it from us.

God bless you.

Bye for now.