Every Tuesday night, around 9 pm, the dings of incoming text messages sound in unison in student housing at the Institute for G.O.D., followed by a notification saying something like this:

“Tonight is the night! Okay…nothing too exciting but turn in those volunteer hours, or walk the plank tomorrow!”

(Those texts come from me, the Student Volunteer Program coordinator at The Institute for G.O.D., and a man with a penchant for pirate jokes.)

Our Student Volunteer Program is one of the ministry training components of the biblical education we offer at the Institute, and tt has been since we first opened our doors in 2004. It’s part of the character we have as the Institute for G.O.D, and we are beyond thankful that this is something our accreditor, the ABHE, requires of schools, as it provides opportunities for students to receive real-time ministry training from experienced facilitators every week. Each semester students commit to volunteering in a variety of programs in the Nashville area. After-school tutoring programs, ESL Programs, teaching dance to kids, visiting the elderly, and hospitality are just a few of the things they have available to choose from. 

Undergraduate students complete over 1000 hours of service before graduation, with the number of hours required of them increasing each year.

The reason for this is that we recognize the truth of Jesus’ words in Matthew 20:25-26:

“25 But Jesus called them to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. 26 It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.”

It is clear from this text that greatness is connected to service, and service should characterize the students of Jesus. Based on this understanding, we’ve identified 5 reasons service should be a part of any Christian higher education.

1: Meeting needs will make you depend on Jesus.

Service makes you depend on Jesus. We don’t mean you’ll be overworked or overstressed and have to cry out desperately for relief, but service often has us engaged in tasks that may be menial, like sweeping, or mopping. An Institute graduate recently reflected on how, when she arrived at the Institute all she wanted to be was a doctor, and how she found herself mopping the school hallway late one night:

“I have a vivid memory from 2011 of me mopping the hallway floor late one night and being so disgruntled that I was there. So I started praying which I’m sure was more me complaining but as I kept praying, that bitterness turned into surrender and I found myself crying in a classroom as God reminded me, he saw me, he knew my heart for health care, and that he had me.”

She went on to explain how the character that volunteering in situations like that gave her a character, a skillset, a perspective, and a reputation that opened doors for her to serve in healthcare and helped her form lasting friendships with the people she served with. She is now studying to be a nurse practitioner.

Much like the graduate quoted above, we don’t know, in a given moment, where God is leading us, or how our experiences in the present are shaping us into the people we will need to be when we get there, but we can know that that they are. The character and skills students at the Institute receive through volunteering goes with them into every aspect of their lives, personally and professionally. 

2: Service will open your eyes and widen your perspective.

Volunteering takes people into places they may not have otherwise gone. This is true of both geographic locations and mental spaces. Students who may not have experienced the ill and elderly have an opportunity to visit Nashville high rises and develop relationships with people who live there. The wealth of wisdom that exists in the aged is something that scripture attests to, but the solitude in which many in those environments live is something that helps students see a need to ensure that the next generation make room for the elderly in the world they create. 

Nick Sherrod, our Wednesday service project coordinator, recently told students of his experience at a high rise, noting how he found simple cleaning in a resident’s unit to really be an opportunity to invest in a relationship with a resident who lived there. It wasn’t that cleaning wasn’t necessary or important. It’s that serving in the way he did shifted the focus from the task to the one whom he was performing the service for, someone who was valuable and in need of human interaction, as is often the case when volunteering is done for another.

3: Service will equip you to meet needs beyond those you are naturally inclined to attend to.

Our Institute President, Gregg Garner, often discusses students’ 20s as an opportunity to experiment in different fields. A student may have a heavily administrative personality, but have the opportunity to work on the school farm, where they learn the basics of planting and harvesting, a skill that will help them contribute to farming efforts in the developing world when they have opportunities to travel internationally in the Institute undergraduate programs. A student who volunteers with maintenance can learn basic electrical skills that allow them to troubleshoot light or power issues abroad. A student volunteering with communications can learn how to write social media captions in a way that helps them succinctly summarize wonderful things happening in a way that’s clear to readers. The options are seriously endless and the effect volunteering has on students makes them dynamic people who can effectively minister in multiple ways.

4: Service will make you more flexible.

We often don’t think about the flexibility required to follow Jesus, despite the model that he gave us. One of the more familiar stories highlighting this is found in Mark 5, where Jairus, a synagogue leader, approaches Jesus seeking help for his dying daughter. On the way, a woman with an issue of blood reaches out and touches his cloak, in faith that it will bring her healing, an event that ends in her telling Jesus her “whole story,” which is time enough for the sick girl to pass. Despite the seeming finality of the situation Jesus insists they go on, dismisses the mourners, and raises the girl from the dead. The sheer number of things he had to attend to during this episode alone highlight this value.

A typical student may do a 2-hour garden shift in the early morning, rush home for a shower and breakfast, then get to class at 8:30 am. They may pick up a shift serving lunch between classes, help manage dismissal of the K-12 school on campus, then head off to after-school programming in one of the local elementary schools. Quick transitions to such widely different experiences create the kind of flexibility needed to truly minister, as a full and diverse schedule is common for many people involved in full-time ministry.

5: Service is obedience to Jesus.

Service to others is part of following Jesus and a lesson he communicates often to his disciples. If we believe Christian education should be making disciples of Jesus, and at the Institute when wholeheartedly do, we cannot divorce the concept of service from our educational model. At the Institute you don’t just find service in students, it’s also modeled in graduates and the faculty of the school. We’re proud to say that we have seen service to be something that lasts well beyond the requirements of our Student Volunteer Program. Helping students find volunteer opportunities is helping them to build lives of service, and this is something that continues to mark them as followers of Jesus.