When I reflect on the times I felt closest to my faith, they are invariably intertwined with moments of shared service with my fellow Christians. This episode springs from a recent Our Daily Bread devotional and a passage from Philippians that celebrates unity in Christ through collective action. I'll lead you through memories of teaming up with my youth group for mission trips and guiding young minds as a church camp counselor, highlighting the indelible spiritual connections that flourish from such fellowship. It's a testament to the strength we find in each other when we unite for a common cause, much like the early church did in support of the Apostle Paul.
When I reflect on the times I felt closest to my faith, they are invariably intertwined with moments of shared service with my fellow Christians. This episode springs from a recent Our Daily Bread devotional and a passage from Philippians that celebrates unity in Christ through collective action. I'll lead you through memories of teaming up with my youth group for mission trips and guiding young minds as a church camp counselor, highlighting the indelible spiritual connections that flourish from such fellowship. It's a testament to the strength we find in each other when we unite for a common cause, much like the early church did in support of the Apostle Paul.
Questions, comments, and opinions are welcome and may be sent to adventuresofjenger@gmail.com! Happy Adventuring!
Speaker 1:
Good morning, ginger Adventures. It's been a little while since I've been on and I wanted to honor my friend and go back to a devotional that was on his birthday. This is Our Daily Bread. You can go to the actual devotional at odborg and you can actually read the devotional. I am not going to read the devotional to you, I am simply going to summarize the devotional and give you my thoughts.
Speaker 1:
So in this devotional it is talking about Christians working together. The title is Serving Together in Jesus and the scripture that it's looking at is Philippians 4, 14 through 20. So it talks about how, when there was this big storm, rescue workers had to work together to help some stranded people. It wasn't just one person that could rescue these people, it took several people. So first you had the people that spotted that there were men stranded, then they had to radio for a ship, then they had to radio for a ship and the ship sent helicopters that were able to provide necessary things for the stranded men, and then the Coast Guard was able to check on the men and then they were finally able to taxi them to where they needed to go with a water taxi. So it took several different vehicles ships, helicopters, a taxi boat. It took several different people in order to rescue these stranded men. They had to work together as a team.
Speaker 1:
You couldn't just count on one person, and it talks about how, in Philippians, the believers had to come together as a group in order to support Paul. It couldn't just be one person helping him. It couldn't just even be you know two or three people helping him. It had to be an entire group of people that helped him Because Paul, as we all know, is a very important figure and was spreading all kinds of news and information to all the new churches. They also had to really get together as a support system when Paul was later in prison. He needed things while he was in prison, so care packages delivered to him because they were gathered by the church. So the church worked together on behalf of Paul and amazing letters came out of Paul's time in prison. So it was is absolutely a godsend that all the church people work together to help support Paul, who was getting out a very important message. So basically, the devotional is telling us that this example of people back in Paul's time, the church working together, should be a really good example for us of what we should be doing today. I believe also that the story they gave in more current times talking about helping ministry and you know that that also should be an example to us that we need to work together.
Speaker 1:
So the question is for reflecting and praying, when have you served well with other believers in Jesus? The first thing that honestly comes to my mind and it's not current y'all, but the first thing that comes to my mind is when I was in youth group. I adored being in youth group. I met my lifelong best friend of goodness 34 years in youth group, and we would go on mission trips, we would go to different cities and we would help communities with different projects and, honestly, y'all, it was back when I was a teenager, so I don't remember what projects we did. I do, however, remember that we worked together as a group to take care of everything that we were doing. We delegated tasks, make sure each task was broken up, and the church that was in that town worked with us to house us.
Speaker 1:
I remember spending the night sleeping on the floor at different churches, and I mean so. They made sure we had blankets and pillows and you know somewhere to sleep shelter and we were teenagers so we didn't mind sleeping on the floor and they made sure that we were fed, they made sure that we were taken care of, they made sure that we had somewhere that we could shower and, you know, brush our teeth and all that fun stuff. So through their efforts of supporting being there in a different city, we were then able to support the community by helping with different projects and I remember just really enjoying that. I remember just really enjoying being with other, you know, christian teens and bonding with them in that way. It was just a very enjoyable experience. It's absolutely something that I would love to enjoy again now as an adult. So maybe someday when I would have the free time, it would be something I'd want to check into.
Speaker 1:
Another thing that comes to mind is and this is more when I was an adult being a counselor at church camp. When have I served well with other believers in Jesus? Being a counselor at church camp? When have I served well with other believers in Jesus? I tell you what being a counselor at church camp was a fantastic experience. I absolutely loved it, being able to connect with other adults that are also serving Christ and then impacting kids. Some of them had not accepted Jesus into their heart. Yet Some of them had, but were really new to it. Being able to take them to worship services, take them to activities, lead Bible studies in the cabin set an example for them during that week. It was a really amazing experience. I would highly recommend it to any adult. At least try it once. It was an absolutely fantastic experience. I loved it and I believe that that's absolutely a way for fellow believers to cooperate and work together. Because you are working with kids, you are helping kids to learn about Jesus, to follow Jesus, to learn how to incorporate that in their everyday lives. So those are my two examples.
Speaker 1:
The second question is what's the basis for the spiritual bond that you share with them? Well, when I was a teen, the basis for the spiritual bond I shared was youth group. I absolutely support youth groups, youth groups and youth pastors. They give teens somewhere safe to be, they give teens somewhere fun to be and they give them that basis for spiritual bond because they're studying the Bible together, because they're praying together, because they are learning verses together. It's absolutely an incredible way to form a spiritual bond. I also believe that the church camp. We were able to form spiritual bonds because we were working together as a team to serve the kids at camp. We would have staff meetings, we would have time here and there. We were where we were, you know, had off time and could come together as adults and just really appreciate the experience that we had and be able to pray together, and that formed the basis for a spiritual bond.
Speaker 1:
I would absolutely encourage every one of you to find your niche of where you would be working together with other Christians. It might be working with kids, it might not. That might not be your thing. It might be helping in the community. Like Habitat for Humanity is building houses and things. That could be a good place to go meet people and there is a good chance to be Christians there. If you are part of a church, absolutely. Your church is going to have different projects going on that you can participate, or you could recommend a project yourself where you could have that chance to serve well with others. That's all I have for this devotional.
Speaker 1:
I would love to hear from you If you want to drop me a line. My email is adventuresofjinger at gmailcom. You can also find me at facebookcom slash adventuresofjinger. I honestly have not been on here for so long that I don't remember all of my media contacts, but they're definitely in my other podcasts, all of my media contacts, but they're definitely in my other podcasts. But I would absolutely love to hear from all of you. I'm on Twitter, that is, at Ginger Adventures, and then, of course, I'm also on Buzzsprout, which supports my podcast, and if you would like to subscribe to my podcast, that would be absolutely fantastic. It's only $3 a month and it enables me to be able to make more of these podcast episodes and get them out to all of you. Love y'all, I will see you on the wild side.