One of my strongest spiritual gifts is in the area of discipleship. And the best way that I can achieve that is found in one of my other strongest gifts, teaching. But is that the only way to disciple?

Although teaching, in a classroom setting, or a home study, or even some one on one situations, is often the way that we create and grow disciples, is it the only way? Or even the best way?

I am very comfortable teaching a Bible class or study, and the more I do that, the more comfortable I am. In fact, when I was presented with the idea that we do something different this summer, I was hesitant at first. Simply because teaching is within my comfort zone. Other stuff might not be.

But the more I thought about it, the more I discovered that maybe discipleship happens in several different ways, and not all of them involve a teaching/classroom setting. Sometimes disciples are grown by getting out and doing what disciples do.

To that end, we are trying something new at our church this summer. We are calling it the Summer of Service, and we have a lot of pretty good ideas that can pull all the different ages and groups in our church together to work together as we grow together. It may be a bit uncomfortable for some, but we believe that it will be a valuable summer experience, helping us identify our role as a disciple more clearly, and acting upon it.

Each week, we will have a different activity lined up for our Wednesday evening gathering. Sometimes, those will be simple, fun events. One week, we will have a fish fry. Another week, we will rent the pool for the evening.

Other weeks will be filled with service projects. We might weed some of the city’s flowerbeds, or help change light bulbs in the homes of the elderly. Perhaps we will go play games or paint fingernails at the nursing home. We will do all of this together, serving as a church; not as a youth group, or a small group, but as the body of Christ, together.

Still other weeks will be prayer oriented. One week, we will surround our town’s leadership areas and pray for those who work there and lead our community. Another week, we will do something similar around the schools in our community.

Each week’s event will be designed to pull together different people that are apart of our church in order to work together. One week, you may find ten year old boys working with a couple of forty year old ladies and maybe a seventy year old man. Another week may find some teens helping the older widows clean windows downtown. I think it will be a great opportunity to pull our church together as one.

After all, we are called to both service and unity, aren’t we?

Question: Does your church do something like this on a regular basis? How does it go? You can leave a comment by clicking here.