In this podcast episode, the hosts explore the concept of a 'posture of service' within the context of hospitality and biblical teachings. They discuss the importance of prioritizing the needs of others, the humility required to serve, and the significance of small acts of service. Biblical examples, particularly the life of Jesus, illustrate how true service is rooted in love and humility. The conversation also highlights practical applications of service in community settings, emphasizing that everyone has a role to play in serving others joyfully.

Takeaways:

• A posture of service prioritizes the needs of others over personal desires.
• Humility is essential in both giving and receiving service.
• Small acts of service can lead to significant impacts.
• Biblical teachings emphasize serving others as a reflection of God's love.
• Jesus exemplified the ultimate posture of service through his actions.
• Service should be done joyfully, without grumbling or complaints.
• Everyone has unique gifts that can be used to serve others.
• Community involvement in service fosters a culture of hospitality.
• Reflecting on our motivations for service can enhance our experience.
• True service is about building relationships and connections with others.

Chapters:

00:00 The Posture of Service: An Introduction

03:01 Biblical Foundations of Service

05:49 Jesus: The Ultimate Example of Service

09:08 The Importance of Little Things in Service

12:11 Living Out a Posture of Service in Community

15:00 Stories of Service in Action

18:09 Reflections and Practical Applications of Service

Hello, future interns, hospitality experts, all of the above. Welcome back to the podcast where we just talk a little bit about hospitality and how that relates to the Bible and our mission here at the Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation. Once again, we're gonna be just diving into a specific type of hospitality or a specific concept that relates to the kingdom. And this week's topic is a posture of service. And so I was wondering Courtney, if you could just...

Get us started by explaining what we mean by a posture of service.

Yeah, I would love to. So, a posture of service maybe isn't a super intuitive kind of title or concept, but we're going to break it down into kind of three different ideas and kind of just elements to what we mean by a posture of service. So I will mention those, kind of describe them, and then yeah, like Natasha said, we'll get into the Bible and see what it says about them.

So the first part of a posture of service is prioritizing the needs of others over desire for prestige, power, or comfort. So this is really just the idea that when you are serving others, it's not about your title, it's not about your control, or really about you and what you need, even your comfort, but it's about the needs of others. And so it's just...

kind of reorienting or flipping the script of like, what can I do for others? It's not for my glory. And ultimately, hopefully it's for the glory of God. But just the motivation and the heart behind why we are doing what we are doing. And then the second important element is humbly offering the gift of service because we first had to have the humility to receive it. And so one of the key parts of serving others that I think goes overlooked oftentimes is that

Sometimes the people who are best able to serve were first accepting of service or a gift from somebody else. And so you have to have humility to be able to receive that gift from somebody. And we see this in the Bible a lot, even in Jesus, and we'll get into that a little bit. But what does it look like to say, like, yes, I received this gift, I received this service, and then it's kind of this idea of paying it forward. And so.

when we serve others humbly, it's because we had the humility to first be served. And then maybe a little bit more practically, our third element is what we're calling the little things. So we'll talk a little bit more about what those little things are, what they look like in the space, and again, kind of what the Bible says about it. But this is kind of the details of service. How are you doing all of the little things that make the big impact? And how are you doing it with a joyful heart?

And again, just that like humble service. So that's what we're going to be talking about. That's the broad strokes of apostrophe service. And where is this kind of service shown in the Bible? Natasha, you want to kick us off?

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like the Bible talks about aposture of service all the time in so many different ways. And so I know on the last podcast, we just dove really deeply into like a longer passage of the Bible, but this time we want to talk about three different times where the Bible talks about aposture of service. And each of those times kind of hits on one of those three main

points that you were discussing Courtney. And so I'll kick us off with that first point of prioritizing the needs of others over the desire for prestige, power, or comfort. Because I think that's really, really important. And the part of the Bible that really stuck out to me with that theme and concept is actually part of the book of Mark. And so I'm going to read Mark 10, verses 23 through 45 for you all. And those verses say, not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you.

must be your servant and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." Wow, there's a lot in that little two verses or three verses to unpack. And so the first thing that really stuck out to me about these verses is just how different the kingdom of God is from the secular world.

because in the secular world, feel like in order to be great, like, you need to be the best, you need to have the most prestige, you need to have the most power, you need to like be a king that has all of this money and all of this power and all of these things. But in God's kingdom, in order to become great, you actually need to lower yourself and humble yourself and serve others. And so there's this stark difference between the secular world and God's kingdom that's being discussed in this little passage.

And the second thing that I wanted to talk about is Jesus. Obviously, as a Christian, I feel like we're always trying to be more like Jesus and act more like him. And this passage just very clearly states that Jesus was the ultimate servant. Yes, he is Lord of all. Yes, he is the king. But he also humbled himself and served people and served his disciples and ultimately served us through the great sacrifice of dying on the cross. And so it really just puts that into perspective that

none of us are too great to humble ourselves and serve others. And so I think that that really just goes to having this posture of service and just looking at Jesus as the ultimate servant in order to just remember that in God's kingdom, we're also called to be a servant and serve others well. And yeah, I think this also just goes back to the time of Jesus and how other kings of the time were always striving for money and power and

people didn't really expect Jesus to become the king. They were kind of looking for someone to make the Israelites great and powerful and overthrow everyone in leadership. But in reality, Jesus came as a servant. He humbled himself. And so I just think that Jesus himself and his mission when he was here on earth really just demonstrates the ultimate example of a posture of service. so Courtney, I was wondering if you could go a little bit more into depth about that and maybe give an example of

how Jesus did that throughout his life.

Yeah, yeah. And even as you were talking, I was thinking about kind of towards the end of his ministry when he's talking to the disciples and they're arguing about like, I'm the greatest, no, I'm the greatest. And you know, they're all talking about this. And he says like, no, like the greatest of you is the one who is a servant, or the one who, you know, loves this child. And in that time, like children were not, you know, the top of the hierarchy. so I, yeah, I think that's just another great example of like man's instinct to want to be the greatest. then Jesus says,

No. Like be a servant. no, that's awesome. The one that I wanted to focus on though was from John 13. this is, I just kind of set the scene. You can go and read it yourself, but this is where Jesus washes the feet of his disciples. And so it's a really powerful scene and it has a lot to it, but I think it really focuses on this humility that I talked about kind of in the second element of a posture of service.

of just having the humility to receive the gift of service. And so the disciples are coming into this home with Jesus and they have been walking outside and it's dirty. They're wearing sandals and they probably have some really nasty feet. But Jesus gets down on his hands and knees and he says, I'm going to wash your feet for you. He talks to Peter and all the other disciples and quite honestly, they are like completely offended.

probably, and confused. This is not what the king, the son of man, is supposed to do. It's not right. It's not normal. Maybe a little weird. Who knows all of the emotions that they had. But Jesus said, you know, I don't care about that. I want to serve you. And they listened to him eventually, you know, and they said, I'm going to have the humility to receive this gift from the

man, the God who's above all else, and they let Jesus wash their feet. And so I think that's just such a beautiful image and something that hopefully we can bring to our minds when we think about both how we serve others, like humbling ourselves and saying, okay, if the son of man can get on his hands and knees and wipe dirt, blood, who knows, off of these people's feet, then I can do this too.

and then also taking the posture of, I can be served by anyone around me who is willing and has the heart to do so. And so I think it's a beautiful scene. I encourage you to go read it, dig into it. The second thing that really stood out to me about this passage was actually just like the physical posture. So I talked like a little bit trying to get you to picture Jesus on his hands and knees. But when I think of...

service, it is kind of a physical job depending on the kind of service you're doing. And so I think it's helpful to think about, you know, your own physical posture. There's a reason we're calling this the posture of service. And so if you can use your imagination a little bit, you can think about like carrying a tray and you think about like a waiter or waitress, have this tray. And oftentimes we think about service of like giving things over of like offering whatever is on our tray. But

On the flip side of that, you can think about what do do when you want to receive some gift, a package, a hug, you you put your arms out and you put them out in front of you. And so I think it's significant that both the posture for giving over and receiving can be the same thing. And I think that this, just scripture really highlights that. And maybe even is a good cue for if you're in the space or doing something in life when you just have your hands before you, think about the gift of both giving.

and receiving. Natasha, do want to talk about what we were talking about in thinking about service and thinking about offering things to people, but how do you actually do that? What does that look like? What are these like little things that I mentioned?

Yeah, absolutely. I think that that is a huge part of the job that we're doing in hospitality is the little things. There's obviously the overarching running the event, planning the event, all of the things, but really what makes everything happen is the little things like moving furniture or setting things up in the right way, whether that's putting the plates before the napkins, before the forks, all of these things that seem so significant.

It matters though, it really, really does. And so I wanted to pull from 1 Peter 4 verses 9 through 10, and that says, offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others as faithful stewards of God's grace in its various forms. Now, I think that this verse is great because number one, the first

The first part of it, verse nine, that says, hospitality to one another without grumbling, can definitely be convicting at times. I feel like especially when it comes to these little things, these things that seem maybe tedious, maybe insignificant, it's really hard not to grumble. Whether that's like, you've had a long day and all of a sudden you need to reset all of the space. It's really easy to complain or just act like maybe that's not what you want to be doing. But in reality, the Bible convicts us and reminds us that

Offering hospitality to one another is something that we should be doing out of the joy of our hearts and not something that we have to do and something that we complain about. And so I definitely just wanted to point that out when we talk about the little things, it's just the importance of not grumbling and having a good heart posture as we go into these things. And I think verse 10 is also really interesting because it says that each of us should use the gifts that we've received to serve others.

And I think that's so cool because God gives us all gifts that can be used in so many different ways. And I've seen a lot of people that have the gift of patience and they can use that gift to serve others or have the gift of just being really good about getting the little things right and knowing which order to put the plates and the forks in. And so I think it's so cool that God gives us these gifts. And I think it's so important that we use these gifts or these spiritual

blessings that God gives us in a way that's able to serve others well and steward God's grace. so, yeah, I think that's really the main thing about the little things, just offering hospitality to one another without just the grumbling and the complaints, but also just remembering that God has given us the gift of being able to give. He's given us the ability to serve others and do these little things and offer hospitality well. And so,

when maybe we want to grumble, think about the fact that God's given us the gift of having the opportunity to move these chairs and be in the space and help be a part of this event that could be moving hearts and advancing God's mission. And so just having that mindset, I think, helps with the grumbling when it comes to the little things like moving chairs and furniture and all of the things.

Y'all, if there's an example of this, it is Natasha on Monday mornings with her brawn and strength and also a sunshiny face just moving all of the chairs after Sunday service. And it's a great example of her ability to be positive, but also moving so many chairs every Monday. So yeah, that's awesome.

brawn and strength is definitely the overstatement of section.

No, no, no, no, I've seen it, I've seen it.

I feel like, you know what the chair is how sometimes they're like weirdly heavy and sometimes they're not. The weirdly heavy ones are like a struggle to get through.

Pretend like I know. But yeah, feel like God has definitely given me the gift of positivity, but also has not necessarily given me the gift of really knowing what to do or where things go or how to troubleshoot. And I think that that's a gift that Courtney really has, where I feel like anytime there's something I don't know what to do during an event or how to turn something on or where to play something, Courtney just magically knows the answer. And I feel like she knows everything.

and

I think that God really does just give us these different skills and these different gifts. And I think that's a great reminder too, of just asking for help when you need it. And when there's something that you're less good at, turning to people like Courtney, who maybe knows the answer. So yeah, I think that's just.

so many examples of when the Bible talks about these things. And so I was wondering if we could maybe talk a little bit about how can we apply that here at Upper House and the Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation in our day to day.

Yeah, yeah. Well, we talk a little bit of maybe our own experience, but I think one of the ways that we see this posture of service really lived out in the space is just through our staff. And we might have a hospitality team, which is great, but nobody at the foundation gets out of being a part of hospitality. It's really everyone's job and kind of in everyone's job description, whether they like it or not. And the great part is, is they usually do like it and they do it with a lot of joy.

And so it really is a team effort to serve when more help is needed. And so it's often that we have a big event and we need kind of all hands on deck or people kind of sign up in advance of like, I'm going to help with this or I'm going to help with this. And so I just think that it's such a gift that everyone in this space both offers their service and is willing to be served. Like our hospitality team is willing to accept the service of everybody else on staff.

And it's a lot of fun too. So I'm wondering if we can share some stories. And maybe Natasha, you can start off with how have you seen kind of the staff get involved and just this posture of service really lived out here.

Yeah, my gosh, so, so, so many times. The story that just really comes to mind, I think this was one of those like wow moments where I was like, my gosh, the full-time staff really do just have this posture of service in a way that I've never seen in any other organization, is Kingdom Justice Summit, which is one of the biggest events that we do. It requires a lot of setup. It involves almost every single room turning into a breakout room, which means

a lot of chairs being moved, a lot of furniture moving and little things and just these tedious tasks. And I remember feeling very stressed the morning of Kingdom Justice Summit, just frantically resetting rooms. And I was frantically resetting Birch. And I remember John Terrell, who's the executive director of Upper House, like as high up as it gets, that's John Terrell. And he walks into Birch and he's like, hey, like I'm here to help you in whatever way I can.

how do you want this room set up? How do you want the chairs to be moved? Like, I'm here to do it. I'm here to move the chairs and just help you. And having the executive director walk up to a hospitality intern and just be like, I'm here to help you with what you need is just the ultimate example of having that posture of service and having someone that it is not in his job description to be moving chairs at seven in the morning. Like that's really not what John Terrell needs to be spending his time doing.

but just his willingness and his joyful heart posture and attitude to just help out in whatever way was needed. And that morning it was moving chairs and just do it with a joyful heart. And yeah, I just think that that's a crazy story that I still think of to this day that just really reminds me to have that posture of service and just remember that no one is too high up to serve others and help others well and joyfully. Do you have any stories like that Courtney?

Yeah, yeah. mean, like you said, there's a lot. I think fondly of all of our pop-up lunches. And so this is kind of a big, bigger event for students. It requires a lot of cooking and serving the students and getting it set up. And oftentimes the staff are able to, you know, say like, yeah, I can give you a little bit of time during the setup period to go behind Steve's like counter and start setting up. so.

I have had a lot of fun. I think about Brian and he is usually like all about helping with whatever we need back there. And I've seen him, you know, mix huge bowls of pudding and, you know, limit as many taste tests as he can because it was good pudding. But yeah, we were filling these little cups and decorating them and just having a great time. And they have a lot of work that they could be doing, but...

It kind of, it doesn't feel like anybody's forced to be there. And especially Brian's just back there cracking jokes and having fun and really serving these students. And so you can see it from just as people approach the counter, even the students, just, they're excited and they can feel the energy. And that has a lot to do with the staff who are willing to step up and help us during those events. So they're highlight for sure.

Wow, yeah, that is an awesome story. Definitely just a major shout out to all these full-time staffs, because I've truly never seen an organization where the people that are the highest up in the organization are helping the interns out with serving food to random college students or moving furniture, all the things. But you just see this posture of service so clearly here at the Stephen and Laurel Brown Foundation, which is so, cool. And speaking of our lovely, wonderful full-time staff,

I was wondering, because I know Courtney, you had some time to reach out to some of the full-time staff about their experience with having a posture of service. And so was wondering what you heard from them.

Yeah, so I talked to Susan Swanky and Becca, or Becca Cooks, and so they gave a little bit of insight. It was great. Honestly, they have more to say than I'm able to share today. So they're great people to talk to you about this and have a lot of experience with hospitality and doing a lot of these little things and doing them well. So I'm going to start off with sharing a little bit about what Susan said.

And then actually Becca gave us some really great guiding questions that hopefully are some really good steps forward from listening to this of like, how do I do this? What do I think about? How can I guide this journey of trying to take on a posture of service? So hopefully those are helpful. But to start, Susan was talking a little bit about some stories, not only of Jesus serving his disciples,

but also the saints and she actually pointed out Mother Teresa, which is pretty fitting. But I liked what she said. I can read a little bit. said, Mother Teresa, whose humility and service is so striking. She reminds me to change my perspective and remember the joy that comes from giving yourself to others. And then she shared, so as a quote there, she's then shared something that Mother Teresa would often pray.

And that she would sometimes pray at the beginning of her workday too. And so one of the lines is, Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go. And I thought that was really cool. I don't know if I've necessarily heard a prayer quite like that. But what would it look like, you know, if we all served in a way that we were spreading Jesus's fragrance?

upper house would smell pretty good. And so I love that visual. I even love that prayer. Dear Jesus, help us to spread your fragrance wherever we go. So I hope that's helpful to others as well. And then some of what Becca shared, like I mentioned, were those questions. And so there's a lot of really good ones. I'll mention a few.

To kind of highlight her point was kind of going back to that, like, how do we do these little things well without the grumbling and the complaining that maybe you were talking about? And she kind of made this distinction between doing service that builds your affection for God or others versus doing service out of obligation. And so what can we do to increase our desire for serving out of affection? And so some of her questions.

Starting off, what builds your affection? Not necessarily your knowledge, but your affection about this God who is asking you to serve humbly. So she gave some prompts of what might build this affection. So situations that might make you feel awe, taking in beauty, fasting, listening, or contemplative prayer. And if those are any things that...

or any of those things do kind of build your affection, then you should focus on those, which I think is really helpful. Another question, what fosters your gratitude, appreciation for, proximity, and or commonality for the people you are serving and focus on these things? I think this is so important. We have a lot of different people that come here to Upper House or any other location that we have.

But also just in our daily life, you know, we can broaden this where we interact with obviously so many people and we're not always going to relate to those people or agree with them. Maybe even we might not like them. But if we choose to focus on the things that draw us in proximity or appreciation for one another in our commonalities, it's going to be much easier to serve them and to not hold any kind of resentment or that grumbling. So I thought that was really relevant.

Another one, how is your service defending, protecting, and bringing equity and honor to people who would otherwise not have it? So how are you looking out for the people who may need your service the most? And how is that an equitable experience? And what virtue are you strengthening when you serve? I think that's maybe a harder question, and there could be a lot of different answers, but those are some good questions. Definitely takes a lot to contemplate them.

But is there any of maybe what Susan shared or any of those questions that really stood out to you Natasha or that you want to think more about?

Yeah. my gosh. I'm like looking at these now and they're all incredible. I feel like Becca just has this amazing gift of being able to ask the most thoughtful in-depth question every time she opens her mouth. Yeah, talk about you. my gosh. Yeah. Like there's never been a time where it's like a morning, you know, like sometimes it's a morning and you run into someone it's like, how are you? How are you? Every single morning. It's like, what is God doing in your life? Like there's never like a surface level question with Becca. It's always like,

using your gifts to serve.

so thoughtful, so in depth, so intentional. And yeah, these are all amazing questions. I think the first one really stands out to me, just the one that's what builds your affection about God who is asking you to serve humbly. Because I think that, yeah, just that affection for God is such a great way to not grumble and not complain because just your love for God will be demonstrated in your love for others as well.

And honestly, I feel like the verses we were talking about is really what builds my affection about the God who's asking me to serve humbly. Just that reminder that the God of the universe literally set his only son to serve us. Like there are gods that people believe in that require people to do all of these things and constantly be serving that God. But...

the Christian God is a God who sent his only son to serve us. Like the God of the universe sent his son to serve us. That's just such a crazy thing to me. And just the fact that Jesus, like you said, washed his disciples feet and just constantly lowered himself into a posture of service is so counterintuitive to what so many people believe. And I think that is just something that really

makes me feel awe for the God of the universe and Jesus and just reminds me that I can be like Jesus by pursuing these things as well. And so I feel like there's so much more that we could talk about with these questions, but we are running out of time. And so I just encourage you to really think about these things as you go through your week, as you go through your time working in hospitality and see how your answers to these questions grow the longer you.

Yeah. Continue to practice this posture of service and this hospitality, whether it's through the big things or the little things or all of the things. I just hope that you continue having these conversations, build off of any questions that maybe came up in your mind during this podcast or any of the questions that Becca posed. Yeah. But yeah, I think that's all we have. Natasha. the things. Yeah. Thanks for tuning in and we're wishing you all of the luck. We know you're going to kill it.

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