Servant Team Value and Goals

Servant Team Values

Community – The Servant Team will live as a community united in the love of Christ. Community is our means of ministry. It is through community that the values of the Kingdom of God are established in our lives and service. It will be through community that the redeeming love of Christ will be reflected in such a way that the poor are welcomed into our fellowship.

Discipleship- Discipleship will take the form of weekly meetings concentrating on the issues of poverty, the poor, ministry and our corporate responsibility as the body of Christ. These informal meetings are designed to open doors for discussion. Discipleship will also come out of community living, Bible study, book critiques, and our brokenness as we live and serve among the poor. Worship and prayer will be vital parts of this discipleship with one another.

Internship- A significant component of the Servant Team will be some form of active involvement in a local Christian ministry, a non-government organization (NGO), or an aid/relief program working in some capacity to serve the poor (i.e. street children, leprosy rehabilitation, pediatric AIDS care). This aspect of the Servant Team members will partly depend on the interests of the Servant Team members and will afford the members the opportunity to learn more about community development and holistic ministry. This experience also serves as a springboard for a personal project that each Servant Team member will be asked to submit at the end of their team experience.

Ministry- Ministry will not simply be the “things we do.” It will be the very essence of the lives we live with each other and among the poor.

Servant Team Goals

Celebrate the person of Jesus Christ
The Servant Team exists to draw those involved into a deeper love and more intimate knowledge of Jesus that others may know him. It is by loving Him that we are able to love one another and this dying world. It is through knowing Him that we may know His passions and follow His lead in serving the poorest of the poor. This service is not the end we seek; the end is Christ Himself.

Clarify and contextualize a biblically based world view
Our world view is distorted by our economic status and the narcissism of our society. Greed, pride, and extreme individualism characterize our values. Scripture speaks of a world view shaped by the values of humility, sacrifice, and love. These are the values of the Kingdom of God. As believers we should place more emphasis on understanding what Scripture has to say about who we are and to Whom we belong. Clarification of our world view enables us to develop a more secure foundation upon which to build our faith. Contextualizing our world view is necessary for us to maintain a consistent, Biblical understanding of our faith, regardless of our geographical location.

Develop a foundational philosophy of Christian ministry
All to often service becomes nothing more than a job for those in ministry. At this point it becomes fruitless and vain as it is not rooted in their spirituality. True ministry is a natural out-flow of our relationship with Christ. Unless our outreach is motivated by our relationship with Jesus, it is not rooted in our spirituality. By understanding our relationship with Jesus, the unchanging King, and our relationship to His unshakable Kingdom, we can begin to develop a foundation for living. Once this foundation for living is established, we will have a foundation for ministry.

Re-interpret our spirituality in the context of a dying world
Through exposure both to God’s Word and God’s world, we are faced with the reality of the poor and our need to engage that reality. We must be committed to a response that centers on bringing God’s redemptive love, through our own brokenness and humility, to His lost and suffering children.

Develop a firm relationship with local churches
Throughout the commitment of the Servant Team we will seek to understand through the study of Scriptures, how and why the Lord has established the Church as His body here on earth. Seeking to understand our place in the Church, what we give to the Church, and what we can offer the Church will be a starting point to developing a collective and personal understanding of the theology and philosophy of the Church.

Learn to function in culturally appropriate ways in the majority world
We acknowledge that we are entering the Third World as outsiders. As such, we can never fully identify with or understand the conditions of those among whom we serve; the poorest of the poor. It is arrogant for us to believe that we have all the answers. Therefore, we will seek to enter into each situation with a posture of humility that will place us in a position of continual learning from the poor.