Direct Service

Humans are social beings that thrive on love, friendship, and connections with fellow beings in general. It is part of our nature to have passions and areas of interest in which we invest our time, money, and effort. Many people have a passion for, or at least an interest in service of some form; some organization or cause that they feel they ought to back. But is financial support enough? Can one truly give back to the community in a purely monetary manner? I think not. Dr. Karl Bailey and his associates in the Behavioral Sciences Department of Andrews University conducted a study on religiosity and their results showed that high cost behaviors (such as tithing, fasting, being an elder, active involvement of some sort) resulted in greater happiness than those that simply attended.
Similarly, Bill McKibben brings up the Waltons of Walmart fame, who on the top tier of the financial pyramid “runs a budget deficit and can’t afford a new sewage treatment plant” in the town of Bentonville, Arkansas, the birthplace of the Walmart industry (pg.124). One of McKibben’s statistics stated that Americans who make between $50,000 and $100,000 give “two to six times as much of their money (in percentage terms) as people who make more than $10 million” (pg.124). These wealthy people that donate money at such low percentages don’t get involved in the organizations and programs that they financially support. If one doesn’t get involved in high cost behaviors, then one is not as vested in the programs as much.
People are wired to interact with one another, to help each other out, and to push themselves in areas that they are interested in/passionate about (otherwise no one would ever get a college degree, the effort wouldn’t be worth it), but if people aren’t involved in face-to-face service, it is hard to become passionate about a cause or program. Unless one has first-hand personal experience, the cause isn’t real to them. I’m not saying that there is no room for financial contribution, because without money virtually nothing can function. Also, a person may have multiple causes they are interested in helping, but one can’t feed people in Somalia, take care of orphans in Russia, and teach literacy in El Salvador simultaneously; few people have the time to dedicate years of their lives to service, and that is fine. One can contribute financially to those organizations, but I believe that it is essential to our well-being, and our Christian calling to change the world around us in some small way, for service is a truly selfless calling.