Above: Scenes from last year's Serve-a-Thon, May 2023.
I started taking piano lessons when I was in second grade. I don't remember too many details about the beginning of my journey playing the piano but I do know that it continues to this day. I've spent many hours playing the piano in each of the homes I've lived in, at various churches, for a whole lot of concerts, in classrooms, and even on several tours throughout different parts of the country and the world. I've just played a lot of piano over the past almost 40 years.
I remember once watching a video clip by a comedian sharing about her experience with learning to play the piano. (For the life of me I cannot find the clip now, but I'm pretty sure it was Kristina Kuzmic.) Anyway, she talked about how she can't remember a moment when she "learned to play the piano"; it just happened gradually as she kept putting the time in.
I can't help but wonder how many aspects of life could fit this description. When exactly did you learn how to spell? Or brush your hair? Or drive a car? Perhaps there are a few cases in which you do remember a specific experience that had a defining before/after effect on you. I didn't know how to bake cookies, and then one day my grandmother had me over and showed me. Or, I never understood long division until my amazing math teacher taught this one lesson that made it make sense! Certainly those kinds examples would carry meaning and have likely have had a profound effect on your life, if you've had them.
Sometimes we provide opportunities for our children, hoping that even if the experiences don't actually create a "defining moment of learning", they are an important part of the process of shaping and growing them. One example of this kind of opportunity for ACSD students is the Serve-a-Thon. Each year, around the beginning of May, we spend one day as a whole student body, serving our community. The teachers participate as well, along with a number of parent volunteers. The hope is that as our students engage actively in serving, they will become part of spreading God's love to the community, and the result will be many layers of blessings - blessings for those we are serving, blessings for the students, teachers, and parents who are doing the serving, and blessings for the ministry of the school as people give toward this event.
Over the next 9 weeks leading up to this year's Serve-a-Thon, I would love for many of us to be joining together in prayer - asking God to do great things and use this event to build His Kingdom in whatever ways He sees fit. Serve-a-Thon might not be the thing that a student looks back on and says, "That's the moment I learned to serve", but let's pray that God uses it as part of the process of transforming our students into people who have hearts to serve Him by serving others.
Pray with me...
... Father, prepare the hearts of all the people who will be participating in Serve-a-Thon
this year
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Psalm 51:10
... Jesus, let people experience You in powerful ways through this year's Serve-a-Thon
Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen. 1 Peter 4:10-11
... Holy Spirit, raise up many cheerful givers to support ACSD through the Serve-a-Thon
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency[e] in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:7-8
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog and pray for Alliance Christian School District! Lord willing, I plan to publish a new blog post weekly throughout the school year. Feel free to subscribe (at the bottom of this page) if you'd like to be notified each time a new blog post has been published. We also have a prayer team that is always open for new pray-ers to join. If you'd like to learn more, email me at cwarner@alliancechristian.org.
~ Carrie Warner, ACSD Prayer Team Coordinator
Soli Deo Gloria
To God alone be the glory
