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The Servant’s secret

Serving others

Do a “dirty job” with your kids and help them find joy in serving selflessly.

Choose a “dirty job” and do it joyfully together. It could be yard clean up, picking up garbage, cleaning washrooms or washing dishes. Or recruit some friends to help you pick up litter in your community (a park, a boulevard or the grounds around your church).

To add fun, listen to energetic praise music and sing along, and wear silly hats or glasses. Intentionally get even dirtier than necessary and take photos.

Add more fun by telling knock-knock jokes like this one:

First person: Knock knock.

Second person: Who’s there?

First person: Phil.

Second person: Phil who?

First person: Phil Thee. Filthy jobs are my favourite!

Use the discussion questions below to talk about a “secret” that Jesus told, and yet, two thousand years later, many people still don’t understand it.

Questions for discussion
  • Do you know what a secret is?
  • One day Jesus’ disciples were arguing about who was the greatest. Do you know what Jesus told them?
  • Which “dirty job” did Jesus choose to do?
  • What did Jesus show the disciples by washing their feet?
  • What are the dirtiest jobs in our home?
  • Which jobs are the ones nobody wants to do?
  • What kind of attitude do you have when you’re asked to do the dirty job?
Key concepts

A secret is something that only a few people know. Jesus told His disciples that the secret to greatness is to be willing to serve others – even if it means doing the dirty jobs. Oddly enough, most people today still think they are great when others cater to them, rather than the other way around.

Jesus didn’t expect others to serve Him or treat Him like a King, even though He could have expected or demanded royal treatment! Instead, Jesus took on the job of washing everyone else’s feet. This was the job that nobody wanted: the disciples likely wore sandals or bare feet all day, and their feet would have been very dirty. In washing all the dirty feet, Jesus was showing His disciples how to share His love with others by being willing to do the jobs no one else wanted to do.

We did a “Jesus joy job” together because we took joy in doing a job no one else wanted to do, just like Jesus did. A “joy job” brings joy to God, to you, and to the person you have helped. When we are diligent in serving others cheerfully and willingly we bring honour to God.

Relevant Scripture

Proverbs 11:25 “Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”

Mark 10:45 “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.”

Luke 22:26-27 “But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.”

1 John 4:10-12 “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.”

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