By Carole Turner
My husband Dean and I have been a part of Healing Place Church for over 10 years. I have known Dino and Delynn Rizzo for over 20 years. A lot of what I read about in Dino’s new book Servolution, I actually was a part of. I even got to read rough drafts of the book and give input on it over the last year, BUT I still cried last night while reading the final product.
I remember Katrina, being at the New Orleans Airport the week after, helping people that had been taken there from roof tops and over passes, filthy, hungry, being sent to a strange new city with only the clothes on their backs.
I also know many people have been shown the love of Jesus at Midnight outreach, Homeless Breakfast, The Baton Rouge Dream Center, etc. etc. SO, reading about all this and much more, is very personal to me.
When my husband Dean was at the recent Healing Place Church Men’s conference he sat on a row with friends and acquaintances of his who were a former pimp, an ex drug adict, a disabled man, two homeless guys, two inner city teen boys, a preacher and an upstanding wealthy business man.
THAT is HPC, all the time and it’s because Dino has decided that all people are valuable to Jesus not just the rich, not just the poor but all people. AND he has also made Serving and reaching out to all aspects of society a priority for HPC, year round, everyday. No exceptions from the crack house to the country club, all people matter to God.
I believe this book is for this generation. Everyone is talking social justice, Hollywood talks the loudest but Christians unfortunately are not known for being active socially. We are more known for all we are against.
Even though there are many great organizations serving in the name of Jesus around the world and locally, I believe this book will help church leaders learn tangable ways to serve their community daily, each member, all walks of life, all the time and how to be salt and light to all who see.
This book is a tool, a God-given tool, for the body of Christ to get their hands on and see how to start a revolution by serving others. Serving is a basic Jesus principle; He started it.
Here are some of the parts that I loved the best.:
…it means noticing who is on the bottom of everyone’s list and putting them at the top of yours. It’s giving and serving with no strings attached. And yes, that means serving them even if they will never step foot inside your church.
We are nothing. He is everything. He became nothing and served us as though we were something. He laid down his everything for our nothing. How much more should we, being nothing, serve those He considers to be something worth everything.
Matthew 20:28: Tthe son of man did not come into the world to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” When He moves into our lives, serving becomes part of our DNA. We really can’t ignore it or shove it aside; that would be denying our own hearts, because it is now who we are.
Being a Christian who does not love to serve is like having a crawfish boil without the crawfish.
Carole is a writer, artist, singer and Orphan Care Advocate. She is married to Dean and mother of three children – one miracle of birth, one adopted from here in the States, and one just adopted from Ethiopia. She blogs at The Wardrobe and the White Tree.