Giving Back

Hi, my name's Rick Bloodworth. This is the Common Sense Christian channel, and I wanted to tell you a story of giving back that started, I don't know, maybe 30 years ago. I was had been a youth group leader for a little over a dozen years in Wyoming. We had just moved to, to happy Texas. And I started preaching here and, and took over the youth group here. And I had gotten a group of young men and women who were really good kids. But they were pretty typical as well. Youth groups, for those of you who don't know it, at a typical church often are taken out. We, we have devotionals and things like that, but usually we take them out as well. And we have something that we try to do that's fun. Either go play putt putt golf or bowling. Now they do paintball and, and just all sorts of different things. And these are good, there's nothing wrong with these things. But I had gotten a little bit wearied of just going and entertaining the kids without them learning anything about giving back. And so it was about this time that I came across an article in an old book that I was reading. I can't even remember the name of the article or the book, but the setting was in a college town. I think it was either during or after the Vietnam War. And there was a, a young man who had gone and served in the Vietnam War, and then he went to college, and he was pledging a fraternity. And one of the things that he noticed was the, the, the fraternity pledging usually consisted of just kind of wild pranks. And often these were pranks that the community at large did not appreciate. Well, this young man had been off in at war and he was more mature than the typical college student, I suppose. And so when it came his turn to be in charge of the new recruit of recruits of pledges, he decided he would do something that was a little bit different than most fraternities. And he started looking for service projects around the community. And, and so the, the, their fraternity started looking for old houses to paint and maybe yards to clean up just different things that they could do. Well, as I was reading this and, and the, the, the man went on to say that the community's view of the fraternities and the college really took a turn at that point for the better. Because now instead of just a bunch of annoying college kids, these were young men and in the, in the sororities, young women who are actually looking to give back to the community. And so now the community is starting to look upon this particular segment of the population with favor instead of disfavor. And as I read that, I thought, I really like this idea. I think I'm going to try it out with our youth group. And so I did. We had a number of widows at that time. And one of the things that I noticed was our widows very rarely had much money, but they always seemed to have a house with a big lawn. And so these, these widows had to somehow keep up with the, with the maintenance of their lawns. And, and that could be very expensive if they couldn't do it themselves. And quite frankly, at their age that so many of them were at, they had no business in, or in, doing it themselves. And some of them just couldn't do it themselves. And so I hit upon the idea to use our youth group to start taking care of our ladies. And I have to tell you, at first it kind of went over like a lead balloon. I took the kids out we didn't have enough lawnmowers for everybody, we didn't really have enough for everybody to do, and they just kind of stood around bored and unimpressed, as teenagers often are, or want to be, want to appear to be. And so, so we kept with it and, and we reminded the kids, this is something that's really going to help people who are in a, in a, at a time of need. And so, the years started going by. This was started, I guess, about 1996, the summer of 1996. And as the years started going by and more kids were coming into the youth group and they were starting to do these service projects for our widows. There was a change that came over the youth group. Instead of being bored or put out that they had to be there to work, instead of being entertained, it was interesting to see how now they were becoming eager. to help out these sweet ladies and it didn't hurt that some of them would do things like bring cookies to, to to a church for them the next time they, we met together for the worship, or they would have an ice cold Dr. Pepper ice cream for the kids when they came by to mow. And, but, but it was really interesting. There were several things that happened. One was that, that our widows were benefited. A burden that they had, a financial burden and a physical burden, was lifted from their lives. And that, of course, was something we were looking for, but there was another benefit that I really wasn't expecting, and that was that it closed the generation gap between these two groups. Now, if you've been around teenagers much, you know that teenagers really don't like to put themselves forth and talk to anybody they're not comfortable with. One of the chief aims of any teenager is not to embarrass themself, and so they really don't venture out into discussion with people that they're not used to. But that, that changed when these ladies started greeting them. When they came to church and telling them how much they appreciated what they were doing and actually gave them some of these little gifts of, of baked goods and, and Dr. Peppers and things like that, well, there became a, a camaraderie, oddly enough, between these two wide age spans. Well, we've been doing that now for about 30 years, and we have found here in Happy, Texas that it has been one of the greatest blessings that we have. It has taught the kids a lesson that's found in James chapter 1, verse 29. We've talked before about how some people just don't seem to like religion at all, and I think the reason they don't is because they see too much hypocrisy in religion. But in James 1 29, it talks about this. It says, Religion that our father looks upon as pure and undefiled is this, to look after widows and orphans in their distress, And to keep oneself undefiled by the world. Well, these are really good things, but think about this being part of religion, to take care of those who are in at a time of need. And, and so our, our teens learned pure and undefiled religion. And they also learned that it made them happy to do so. It was really incredible for me to watch because after being around teens already for a number of years and seeing them usually trying to out compete each other for being bored or showing each other how bored and unimpressed they were, the kids would get together, they would get to these lawns, they would jump into action. You would hear very little but laughter and encouragement and a cheerful conversation. They would go inside the house and they'd knock on the door first and find out if they could take the trash out. And, and it really turned into something beautiful. It was a pure and undefiled religion. Well, we started broadening that at the church and we started adding couples to this that we had some, some elderly couples where, where the man and and the woman were just getting to the point where they couldn't take care of everything. And so the kids started taking care of them as well. And again, it, it just it just kept developing into a friendship and a bond that I believe all churches need. But what I wanted to really talk to you about today was something that happened this summer. And it happened when I was contacting one of our coaches. Each year, it seems like the coaches will have some kind of a voluntary program. They've either got a voluntary basketball night that the kids go to, or they have a voluntary voluntary weight training program that most of the kids will go to. And, and so I always try and call the coaches, even though it's voluntary, I always try and call the coaches and say, is it okay if, if the kids that are in the youth group miss out on these things? And of course it always is because it's not required in the first place, but, but I always like to, to, to make sure if the kids if it'd be good for them to make up some of the training that they might be missing, that They have when they get together with their, with their fellow athletes. And, but this year is really interesting. The coach who, who I hesitate to mention his name because he's a humble man, but, but I'll just, I'll just call him Stacey Perryman for, for, for a reference sake and, and Stacey called up and he said, Hey, I really like what you're doing. Would you mind if. If I brought some of the kids from the football team out that wanted to take part in this. And, you know, my first response was, is this a trick question? Of course, we'd love for them to come out. But it was what he said next that really made me pause and think and appreciate what we have here in Happy. Stacey said, The community has supported our team so well. I wanted to teach our kids that they could turn around and support the community in, in turn. He said, I want, I want to teach them to, to give back. To support the community and so what we did was we had a several properties here in town that needed more than just lawn mowing. They needed they had a lot of debris at them that needed to be cleaned up that maybe we weren't quite equipped to do. We had started using our boys to, to clean up some of these sites and I figured that the work we had would take all summer long and, and then the football. team started coming out on Monday nights with our youth group, and within just two weeks, we had taken care of the entire summer's worth of work. We had cleaned three properties up. The city even donated the, the trash removal. for this cleanup. They were so impressed by what was going on and so they just donated some roll offs to be filled up and then they paid for the disposal of the debris that we threw away. We ran out of work. And so I went to the city and I said, do you have any properties that you would like us to take care of? I knew of one in particular that had been almost a landfill. It's an eyesore. It's been vacant for probably over 20 years. And the people fell on hard times and, and have been gone. And they certainly didn't have the resources to take care of, of things. And, and so I just, I, I suggested that property. And, and the, the city manager just jumped at it. He said, you bet. And so for the last several weeks, we have, they've brought in two huge roll offs and this, and the football team that started off bringing two or three or four people now will have some nights maybe 15 or 20 people. Again, all volunteer. They're not required or expected to do this. But there they are and they're out there lifting up this heavy stuff into these eight foot tall Roll off containers and just filling them to the brim I actually talked to the city this morning and they said you're filling them too full don't fill them so full And and so but again next week they're going to bring out us another Another two containers or roll offs that that we can take care of of this particular property and and again it It all started with an idea by a, by a man that was coming back from military service who looked at a community and he looked at the relationship between the community and the young people of the community. And he thought, as part of the young people of the community population, that they could do better, that they could give back, that they could actually do something that was a help, rather than just some kind of a silly prank. And when he found out how well it worked, He actually wrote an article on it, and then other people saw that. I saw that, certainly, and it's inspired us for the last three decades. I doubt if the Church of Christ and Happy will ever stop taking care of the widows in this way. I hope they don't. I hope that long after I'm gone, they're still getting together to take care of those who need the help. But isn't it remarkable? That it doesn't just stop with the churches. The churches are kind of expected, aren't we? To be doing something that, that is outside of ourselves. But then when you see others in the community, a head football coach, for example, who, instead of just thinking of the X's and O's of the football game or having a winning season or getting good enough to where he can move on to the next spot. You have somebody who is thinking about the community in which he lives, the community which has supported him and his boys for a number of years, who looks upon that type of support and thinks, We need to give back. Jesus put it this way in everything do to others what you'd have them do to you. For this sums up the law and the prophets. Well, Jesus was speaking to the Jews at that time. He had yet to die. Christianity had yet to be established, but just a, a few short years from this point, Jesus was going to die on the cross and he was going to raise again to walk a newness of life and the church was going to be established. And so what was true. For the people of God prior to the cross, doing unto others as you'd have them do unto you is now true for us today. If you want to make a difference in life, if you want to make a difference in your community, Just do unto others as you'd have them do unto you. Just reach out. Look outside of yourself. Don't think selfishly all the time. We're all selfishly motivated. That's a natural thing, but it's a beautiful thing. It's a pure and undefiled type of religion that allows us to look out to see others that are in need and think, I can do something about that. And isn't it beautiful when you have leaders who see that as well, such as our football coach. And by the way, his staff has gotten involved. His assistant coaches have just jumped on board with this. Matter of fact, one of his assistant coaches had been doing it all summer with with his sons already. And and now we've got the entire football staff and nearly the entire football team just volunteering to help. to give back to the community, side by side with, with the youth group that's been doing it for a number of years already. This will work in happy Texas. This will work anywhere. And I think more communities need to be doing this. I think there are more coaches that need to be thinking about ways that they can give back because we're not just trying to produce good football players. That's certainly a job of a football coach or a basketball coach or, or a teacher of any kind. But we're also trying to produce good men and good women, and part of the way we can do that, one of the most important ways we can do that, is to look outside of ourselves and figure out ways that we can help others who are in a position of need. That's a great way of giving back. That's a great way of undefiled religion that nobody's going to have trouble with. That's a great way to be a servant of others and of God. And it's a tremendous training ground. I'm so grateful for our young kids who have been so willing to do this for so many years. Many of them are adults now, but I'm so grateful this summer for something new, for someone from outside of our little group who had a, who had a position of authority over a number of young men. who thought it's time for us to give back and I think that I can help teach them a way to do that and what a beautiful example that's been. Well, that's it for today. I hope this is something that uplifts you. It certainly uplifted me and it's something that I believe can change. the, the very fabric of your community. If you'll just start looking for ways to give back instead of ways to just do things for yourself. Appreciate your listening today. I hope you'll come back next time. If this is something that helps you and you think somebody else might be helped by it, share it with them. Hit the like button. It'll get out to more people. But until next time, I pray that God will richly bless you as you seek to serve him to the very best of your ability.