A backpack for everyone!

There is nothing more rewarding than doing something to serve others as a family. Meck has so many opportunities to do that through our Missions 2.0 ministry.

Have you ever thought, “I’d love to get my kid into serving,” but haven’t been sure exactly how to do that? We have the perfect opportunity for you!

Every year, we have the privilege of serving Bruns Avenue Elementary, a local Charlotte K-5 school, with a Backpack Drive. As a church, we have the fun of filling backpacks for the children at Bruns, 99% of whom qualify for free or reduced lunch. This is a perfect opportunity for kids to learn about serving, because they inherently understand the importance and excitement of a backpack filled with supplies.

Serving matters to most parents because strong character is universally important to us. In a Pew Research study over 95% of parents listed their child’s character development as ‘important’ or ‘extremely important’. That’s not just Christian parents, but across the board. Parents want their children to be kind, compassionate, loving and respectful (as indicated in the study). 

As Christian parents, though, we run the risk of missing the mark and growing a kindness and generosity in our kids that is socially appropriate, aids us in being well liked, and reflects well on us as individuals. There is nothing wrong with any of these things, but it isn’t the vision of generosity and love that Jesus paints for us. 

If we want our kids to truly understand what Jesus is like and the kind of life He is inviting them into, we need to reflect the specific brand of kindness and love that He offers. Below are a few ways we can be intentional about teaching Jesus’s attitude towards service as we participate in the Backpack Drive. Choose one or two to try out with your family, as you work to lead your kids to see what the adventure of the Christian life is all about. 

• Let them know they are working with Jesus! We don’t just serve others because it is the right thing to do, we do so because as friends of Jesus we are invited into all of the awesome things He is doing. Our big job as Christians is to show others what Jesus is like and how awesome life with Him is. We can sometimes do that by telling others about Jesus, but just as often we can show others what He is like. As we do things that reflect Who God is, like providing new backpacks and supplies for kids who need it, we help others get to know a God who loves them, cares about all of the aspects of their life, and is a provider. God does those things through us, which is so cool that he wants us to be a part of His Kingdom in that way. Before you shop for your backpack, explain that the backpack drive isn’t just a nice thing to do, it is a way that we get to partner with Jesus to do His work on Earth. (verses to check out: Matthew 22:34-40, John 15:12-15, Matthew 28:19-20)
  
  
• Practice love as a sacrifice. Oftentimes we participate in service and giving as an overflow of abundance. We explain that we have so much and others have so little, we can share what we have. And that is a true statement, many of us live in an abundance that is unknown to most parts of the world; but that wasn’t Jesus’s posture of love. The love Jesus offers is sacrificial. There are many ways we can help our kids (and ourselves) practice this, but here are a few ideas.
  
  • For younger kids, you might ask them to go without something for the month in order to use that money to buy more backpacks. “What if we didn’t buy ice cream (visit the trampoline park, watch Disney+, etc.) so that we could use that money to buy extra backpacks? 
  • For older kids, you might invite them to sit down with you as you look over the August budget. Let them see that you have a finite amount of money, and where could we go without in order to provide more backpacks? Maybe you don’t eat out during the month, buy new clothes, or a combination of things. 

Both of these practices can be such a rich family experience as you encourage one another when you’re missing the thing you’ve decided to go without, and the joy you share when dropping off the backpacks you’ve sacrificed for. All the while remembering that God’s love sacrificed everything for you. 

• Bring empathy into your serving. We can sometimes run the risk of seeing those we serve as a charity case. We use phrases like ‘less fortunate’, ‘underprivileged’, or ‘disadvantaged’ which separate the people we get to serve as another group from us. In reality, the children at Bruns are exactly like our kids. Worrying about the same things our kids worry about as they head into a new school year; but with some additional hefty challenges. After you get your backpacks, ask your kids to name some things they worry about heading into a new school year (Will they have friends in their class? Is their teacher nice? Do they need to learn multiplication?!) Explain that the kid who gets their backpack likely has the same worries, but also will they have the paper they need for class? Or the food for breakfast? If we can take one of those worries off of their shoulders, why wouldn’t we? Then, pray over your backpack before you drop it off. Pray for the school year ahead of the child who will wear it, for their safety, and that through the gift of a new backpack God’s love is what they experience most. (verses to check out John 11:38-44, Luke 8:43-48)

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MecKidz