New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary’s fall Serve Day offered students and faculty the opportunity to volunteer in the local community and share the hope of Christ.
This semester's Serve Day, taking place Thursday (Sept. 25), saw nearly 300 students, faculty, local church members and campus guests engaging in a variety of service projects and evangelism efforts across New Orleans.
Thursday’s Serve Day, operating under the theme “Training For Service Through Service,” represented the largest number of participants in the event’s history. Several professions of faith were reported throughout the afternoon.
The day began with chapel, where NOBTS President Jamie Dew asked the student body to prepare their hearts to serve the Lord.
“This is an opportunity for us to put feet to faith,” Dew said. “If today you feel a little nervous, that’s completely normal. I just want to encourage you to lean into that, push through that feeling and just be faithful to Jesus in whatever you’re doing today. I’m proud of you and I can’t wait to go out there and serve together.”
After a chapel message from Assistant Professor Eli Byrd, 21 different groups went out into the community to complete a variety of service projects and engage in evangelism.
Multiple groups did prayer walking and evangelism through various neighborhoods. Other groups served at local community centers or churches, while others did clean-up projects throughout the city.
After the projects were completed, the groups gathered in the Luter Student Center to share highlights of their time serving.
Several students gave testimonies of sharing the Gospel and people praying to receive Christ as Savior.
Thomas Strong, vice president of spiritual formation and student life, noted that several distance or flex students, and also more than 20 prospective students, had joined in with the residential campus community to participate in Serve Day.
“We’re glad that you’re here on campus with us and that you joined us for this,” Strong said. “You are a part of our student body too and we’re thankful for that.”
Strong challenged students to reflect on what they learned through the experience and how they can apply it to their lives.
“This is much more than just a good moment,” Strong said. “This is much more than a good thing that we do. As followers of Christ, these moments become opportunities for God to touch our lives and make an impact on us.
“If Serve Day is just something we do once a semester, then we really have no idea what service is. Service is not just something we do, it’s something that should be a part of our normal lives.
“The purpose of this day is that you find one of these ministries or these churches and get involved consistently. The purpose is that we are reminded of what we should be doing every single day. Our prayer is that the impact of this day doesn’t stop, but that it continues.”
Dew closed the time by reminding students to always live out the truth of the Gospel.
“3 John verse 4 says ‘I have no greater joy than that my children are walking in the truth,’” Dew said.
“When referencing ‘walking in the truth,’ we often hear that in a way that relates to understanding, articulating and defending the truth in an apologetic sense. Whatever it means by truth there, it doesn’t mean less than the actual content of truth. That’s not what I mean.
“I mean that if we strip this concept of truth here down into a purely cerebral sense, I think we could be missing part of the point. What does it mean to walk in the truth? It means that you have been so shaken by the truth of the Gospel that you’re now walking and living in a particular kind of way.
“My brothers and sisters, we can’t merely believe rightly. Our right belief must compel us to actually go out and do good. This day is just one small sample of what that looks like. My prayer and vision for this is that what we did today has a long-term application at this Seminary, in our local churches and in your lives.”
