Growth in Service
Growth in Service
In the previous issue we spoke about growth in number, and we gave many examples of that, then we discussed spiritual growth. Today we continue our talk about:
Growth in Service (2)
Growth in service has very many fields and characteristics that we can present and summarize in some points.
Fields of Growth
- Growth in the number of disciples and classes. We have previously spoken about numerical growth.
- Growth in visitation, so that it includes everyone. It progresses from visiting absentees, to visiting the cases of those served in their material and spiritual needs. And from visiting students in Sunday School, to guiding their families so that the priest may visit them.
- Growth in organizing the service. In this, computers can be used.
- Growth in the spread of the service so that it includes villages, poor neighborhoods, and informal settlements.
This is because many branches care for capitals and cities, and do not give the same attention to the countryside, new communities, and other neglected neighborhoods. Or they may care for the church area only, without the other neighboring areas… - Growth in serving all categories:
Church education schools should not be satisfied with serving school students only, but the service should progress to include classes of workers and craftsmen, and special programs should be found for them. Likewise, the service of the illiterate and those who did not complete their education, together with serving those who are completely far from the Church, and those who have no one to remember them. - Growth in using visual aids.
We mean everything that can be used from audio and visual means… We do not deny the importance of plays and religious films, and the extent of their influence on youth and even on adults as well. This artistic movement has begun, and some films about the lives of saints have been produced. But the matter needs greater attention. All successful religious plays carried out by some branches can be filmed, then published and generalized for use. Then the idea of these theaters can be spread in all dioceses, and these educational means included in serving villages and poor neighborhoods. It is preferable to form a special committee for this activity. - Growth in caring for libraries.
Libraries for service have been established in almost all churches. But the majority of them are for adults only. These libraries must grow to spread religious knowledge for all age stages, especially the stage of childhood, which needs a special library in every church.
I remember that in 1953 I issued a magazine for children called (The Illustrated Sunday School Magazine), then I became a monk the following year, and that magazine was transformed into a magazine for adults.
That important educational work stopped. And I hope, by the grace of God, to bring it back to publication once again with the help of a large number of those interested in writing for children, and in composing stories and hymns for them.
We have opened a library for children at the Papal Residence in Cairo, and I would like it to have a counterpart in every diocese, because childhood is the foundational stage in the life of every human being, and we must all care for it… - Growth in caring for the servants themselves and for classes for preparing servants.
It is a dangerous matter for servants to begin their service without sufficient preparation. The Church needs to grow in preparing its servants, so that preparation is comprehensive, including positive aspects related to doctrine, Scripture, rite, spirituality, and educational information, as well as responding to the negatives directed at all this, so that the servant knows how to answer every doubt and every heresy. Even servants who are currently serving need to refresh their information with curricula called Refreshing Courses, along with higher curricula called Advancing Courses. These curricula should continue so that the servant does not lose the spirit of discipleship. - Growth should also reach servants’ meetings, since some branches make servants’ meetings merely for instructions on certain activities, or news of trips or parties and the like. Or servants’ meetings may become a field for dialogue and discussion that is not beneficial and may even cause stumbling.
These meetings must grow in spirit and in knowledge, so that they benefit every servant, old and new, and become spiritually and intellectually refreshing for them.
So far we have issued six books on service for you, and I hope to continue with books related to service. - Growth in caring for youth.
There is a clear phenomenon in many branches: the number of students is very large in the primary stage classes, then gradually decreases in the preparatory and secondary stages, and becomes very small among secondary and university youth. This matter is dangerous and undoubtedly needs treatment.
Perhaps among the reasons are the weakness of the information presented to that stage, or the insufficiency of teachers who satisfy that age…
The Supreme Committee for Church Education has issued a suitable curriculum for the secondary stage and supplied it with curriculum books for the benefit of the teacher on one hand, and to unify educational thought on the other hand.
The issue of teachers and speakers remains. - Growth in caring for the preparation of speakers.
The more a person grows in age and knowledge, the more he needs a higher and deeper level of teaching that can give him what he does not have and what he needs of knowledge. Therefore, we needed a high level of speakers for youth meetings in churches, for university family meetings, and for secondary and university classes in Sunday School.
To prepare these, we cared for the evening university section in the Theological Seminary. Their number has increased greatly, reaching the hundreds in the main seminary in Cairo, in addition to hundreds more in its branches in Lower and Upper Egypt, besides what the Bishopric of Youth carries out through its conferences, servants, and activities.
The matter needs more care regarding speakers and their preparation. Known speakers must increase in their knowledge, and they must also have sufficient commitment in attendance without absence, and in preparing their topics.
For the sake of caring for speakers and growing in knowledge in general, we have undertaken a new project: - The Microfilm and Microfiche Project.
We established this project by the grace of God, which has cost us so far more than half a million pounds. Among its benefits in service is that it enables us to produce quantities of microfilm and microfiche for all our manuscripts in monasteries, ancient churches, the Patriarchate Library, and others, in order to supply copies to the libraries of our monasteries, theological institutes, churches of the diaspora, some large churches, and episcopal libraries in every diocese.
Thus, references become available and accessible to every researcher, with the aim of growing and deepening his knowledge, and spreading Coptic knowledge in all our churches in the diaspora. Undoubtedly, this is a new growth in spreading religious knowledge.
Through this, we can also exchange microfilm and microfiche with world libraries and universities that also keep a large number of our Coptic manuscripts. - Growth in service activities.
There are branches of service that are limited to teaching only, and other branches that have many activities. The goal of growth in service is to spread its activities everywhere.
There may be branches that have the spirit and desire but lack the capabilities that help activate service. This matter needs visiting branches, knowing their needs, and providing these needs for them. By the grace of God, I will work on forming a committee of well-known servants to visit service branches, with a monthly appointment to meet servants at the Papal Residence to study with them the affairs and needs of service, and to work on its growth and advancement. - Searching for the lost.
Whether from those served or from servants, searching for the reasons for their loss, and doing everything possible for their sake. - Growth in the spiritual life of servants.
For the more the servant grows spiritually, to that extent the spirituality of those served grows with him. And the more his level declines, he drags them down with him.
This matter is addressed by the servant with himself and with his father of confession. Every service branch should also care for the spirituality of its servants.
Servants have spiritual conditions that every servant must possess, and the Church must monitor this matter. Every servant and every branch must evaluate its service and study the factors of weakness or its manifestations in order to avoid them, so that the service may grow. - Growth in consecration.
Consecration is another measure of growth in service. The more a person enters into the field of love for God and His service, the more his desire increases to provide more time for service. If he grows in this, he then tends to offer all his time to the Lord, thus entering the scope of consecration, whether as a servant, priest, or monk…
With the churches’ need for a large number of priests to be ordained for their service, we notice that some service branches have no one suitable to be presented for the priesthood! This is very regrettable, because it indicates that growth has stopped at the level of classroom teaching only!!
These branches in particular need special care, evaluation of their service, knowledge of the reasons for the stoppage of their growth, and treatment of that.
For now, we suffice with these points, and until we meet in another topic related to service, if the grace of the Lord wills and we live.
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