Service Is a Demonstration of God's Love

You might recognize Ken Adams from his iconic beard, or maybe from his family’s involvement with Summit Students and Base Camp Live! at the Herndon campus. He and his wife, Chrissy, have been serving at Summit since they first became partners five years ago, and their children Wes (16) and Avery (13) serve, too! “I serve because that’s what you do,” Ken explains. “If you want to see miracles, if you want to see lives touched by God, you invest where you see Him working. We serve because we see God working in and through Summit to impact individuals, children, teens, and the community with the grace and love of God.”

So it makes sense that after hearing about Devereux from a friend, Ken would want to get involved. Devereux is a nonprofit that provides behavioral healthcare to vulnerable children, adolescents, and adults through community-based group homes, foster care homes, counseling centers, case management, abuse and neglect prevention services, and community outreach. Ken and his friend mapped out a plan to host birthday parties for the kids at Devereux. They wanted to “make them feel safe, and loved, and to begin a relationship that would lead to opportunities to share the gospel, and provide them with the resources that would help them cope with life once they aged out of the program at 18,” Ken says. They realized that they wanted to help Devereux more than the two of them could on their own, and so they made it their mission to connect the organization with other local churches and volunteers.

“The idea of joining niceSERVE and Deveraux was easy,” Ken says. “A perfect combination: a valuable and important group of kids in need, and a church and program that could provide incredible energy and resources.” Ken took it upon himself to reach out to Summit’s Community Development Coordinator Elizabeth Cronlund to figure out how to go about this. Elizabeth suggested niceSERVE, and Ken was all for it! He had been volunteering with Devereux for 7 months and forged the relationship with Devereux that Summit now has. Ken saw a need he could help fill and made the God-honoring choice to do something about it. Because of this, Summit now has a niceSERVE partnership with Devereux.

“I first signed up for niceSERVE because the best way to put ourselves in right position and posture before God is to serve,” Ken says. “Serving is working shoulder-to-shoulder with Jesus and His people to show others that they matter, that they are important, that they are loved. When you tell people God loves them, sometimes they have so much baggage they can’t hear it. But when we serve them, humbly, sacrificially, intentionally, we demonstrate God’s love in a way that cuts through peoples’ defenses. I love that niceSERVE believes in serving through sustainable, relational partnerships. This will be the fourth project I've led with niceSERVE, and it’s always so much fun.”

If you've never participated in niceSERVE before, there's no time like the present to jump in! Our next niceSERVE is Saturday, November 15th at 8:30 a.m. Check out the projects we have available and sign up at niceserve.org.  

Guest blogger Sarah Joseph is a contributor to the Summit blog, SUMMIT MAGAZINE, and our Sermon Study Guides.