Pastor Ricky's Blog

This past Sunday, I shared something I believe cuts to the heart of what it means to follow Jesus: serving isn't a program or a personality type — it's a spiritual discipline every believer is called to practice. We've been working through a series on spiritual disciplines — Bible intake, worship, prayer, evangelism — and now we arrive at one that I think many of us quietly avoid: serving. My hope is that by the time you finish reading this, you'll see serving not as a burden to carry, but as a gift you've already been equipped to give. What Does It Actually Mean to Serve? The word "serve" appears somewhere between 600 and 1,000 times in the Bible, depending on your translation. That alone tells us something important — God takes this seriously. In the New Testament, there are at least five different Greek words translated as "serve," and they carry a range of meaning: to minister to, to wait on tables, to care for practical needs, to obey compl...

You Have Been Given a Privilege We started in 1 Peter 2:9, and I want you to sit with these words for a moment: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy." Did you catch that? Because we have received God's mercy — because He called us out of darkness — we have been given the privilege of proclaiming His praises. This isn't a burden laid on a few professionals. It's a gift entrusted to every single believer.   My prayer for our church is this: that people would say about us, "Them folks will tell you about Jesus." What greater thing could be said? Evangelism Is a Command — and a Discipline Like Bible intake, worship, and prayer, evangelism is a spiritual discipline. And like any discipline, it doe...