Concentric Service
I have a desire to serve. I feel that I need to commit to everyone and everything to maximize the positive impact I have in my circles. I have a "yes problem". If I had the time and monetary resources I would keep food banks full, I would endlessly babysit friends children so that they could take a break, I would be on every community committee and I would give, give, give till there is nothing left to give.
Problem is, I do not have unlimited resources, and time is usually not my friend. When you are juggling work, school, family and a household, there is little leftover to give, give, give. So what is a servant hearted individual to do. I was thinking about this on my commute today.
The good thing about an hour commute is that it gives me that time to think. The bad thing is that it is two less hours per day to contribute to some of the things listed above.
I digress, about the topic on my mind today. Let's start again.....I was thinking on my commute today about what it looks like in my life to prioritize my servant heart. I came up with an idea I like to call concentric service.
To serve others in our family, social circle and community we must follow this hierarchy. 1. Self-Service, 2. Family Service, and 3. Social Circle Service and 4. Community Service. This Sunday an Elder at our community church gave a fitting illustration on the misconception of giving of ourselves. We think that giving means giving of our excess, but if we all looked at is as emptying of ourselves to receive more we would prioritize our servitude differently. The illustration was a stack of cups with self as the top cup. As the cup filled with water it began to overflow into the cups (for our illustration we will say 3 cups) below. We think that we must first be full to fill the other cups, but this is not the case. We can fill ourselves up enough to sustain us as we divide our resources into the other cups. This leaves us with more room to continue to receive.
1. Self Service- there must be something in our cup to give. For me this means I give myself time to do things that fulfill me without stressing about whether my house is clean (which is a struggle for me), or whether my child has had Speghetti O's for dinner. This is a struggle for me because I suffer from Acute Mommy Guilt. I am learning, however that if I want to give more to my family, I must also make myself a priority. I work through this everyday.
2. Family Service- yesterday we had enough snow for me to feel it was safer to work from home than brave the commute. This meant that I had my little with me all day as I completed work projects. He is 4 years old, which means he requires constant stimulation. so I built in a little time each hour to play marker swords or to color a page from his Inja Turtle coloring book. For my lunch break we baked cookies. I had to relinquish the stronghold of productivity to give to my child. This meant I had to work longer into the night, but gave him the sense of importance.
3. Social Circle Service- I am a horrible friend. I mean seriously horrible. I don't call, I don't write or text message often and I don't even spend much time on Facebook anymore. I would love to see friends all of the time, I would love to cook for them, and watch their children, I would love to do life with friends old and new. The challenge is time. I have decided to make a list of 3 people I would like to serve better per week. I can use the commute home to call them, or make plans to meet up for coffee on a week night. Start a book club with a few of them so that I can find other ways to serve them. It has to be a conscious effort. None of us have unlimited amounts of time.
4. Community Service- This one is a hard one. I would love to be more involved in my community. I have a passion for career path development and have been very slowly, but surely developing a seminar for college students about successfully entering and transitioning into the workforce. Unfortunately this endeavor ends up last on the service priority list. Again it's going to take a conscious effort and better time management to make this D list priority gain momentum in my life. Often time it means that one of our other service areas may need to take a temporary hit, but the long term influence and impact will allow Self and Family sustainability for a long time to come.
So now I have the daunting task of figuring out how to disperse my cup into these four service areas of my life. Like a drop in a stagnant pond I need to find out how my concentric service will ripple out into the service areas I am passionate about. I will let you all know what my plan consists of and how it works out in the weeks to come.
Blessings to you all.
Problem is, I do not have unlimited resources, and time is usually not my friend. When you are juggling work, school, family and a household, there is little leftover to give, give, give. So what is a servant hearted individual to do. I was thinking about this on my commute today.
The good thing about an hour commute is that it gives me that time to think. The bad thing is that it is two less hours per day to contribute to some of the things listed above.
I digress, about the topic on my mind today. Let's start again.....I was thinking on my commute today about what it looks like in my life to prioritize my servant heart. I came up with an idea I like to call concentric service.
To serve others in our family, social circle and community we must follow this hierarchy. 1. Self-Service, 2. Family Service, and 3. Social Circle Service and 4. Community Service. This Sunday an Elder at our community church gave a fitting illustration on the misconception of giving of ourselves. We think that giving means giving of our excess, but if we all looked at is as emptying of ourselves to receive more we would prioritize our servitude differently. The illustration was a stack of cups with self as the top cup. As the cup filled with water it began to overflow into the cups (for our illustration we will say 3 cups) below. We think that we must first be full to fill the other cups, but this is not the case. We can fill ourselves up enough to sustain us as we divide our resources into the other cups. This leaves us with more room to continue to receive.
1. Self Service- there must be something in our cup to give. For me this means I give myself time to do things that fulfill me without stressing about whether my house is clean (which is a struggle for me), or whether my child has had Speghetti O's for dinner. This is a struggle for me because I suffer from Acute Mommy Guilt. I am learning, however that if I want to give more to my family, I must also make myself a priority. I work through this everyday.
2. Family Service- yesterday we had enough snow for me to feel it was safer to work from home than brave the commute. This meant that I had my little with me all day as I completed work projects. He is 4 years old, which means he requires constant stimulation. so I built in a little time each hour to play marker swords or to color a page from his Inja Turtle coloring book. For my lunch break we baked cookies. I had to relinquish the stronghold of productivity to give to my child. This meant I had to work longer into the night, but gave him the sense of importance.
3. Social Circle Service- I am a horrible friend. I mean seriously horrible. I don't call, I don't write or text message often and I don't even spend much time on Facebook anymore. I would love to see friends all of the time, I would love to cook for them, and watch their children, I would love to do life with friends old and new. The challenge is time. I have decided to make a list of 3 people I would like to serve better per week. I can use the commute home to call them, or make plans to meet up for coffee on a week night. Start a book club with a few of them so that I can find other ways to serve them. It has to be a conscious effort. None of us have unlimited amounts of time.
4. Community Service- This one is a hard one. I would love to be more involved in my community. I have a passion for career path development and have been very slowly, but surely developing a seminar for college students about successfully entering and transitioning into the workforce. Unfortunately this endeavor ends up last on the service priority list. Again it's going to take a conscious effort and better time management to make this D list priority gain momentum in my life. Often time it means that one of our other service areas may need to take a temporary hit, but the long term influence and impact will allow Self and Family sustainability for a long time to come.
So now I have the daunting task of figuring out how to disperse my cup into these four service areas of my life. Like a drop in a stagnant pond I need to find out how my concentric service will ripple out into the service areas I am passionate about. I will let you all know what my plan consists of and how it works out in the weeks to come.
Blessings to you all.
Comments
Post a Comment