Q&A Home > S > Service

• 911 EMERGENCY CALL: Our youth need immediate help. Not all priests are blessed with the gift of communication with youth, and consequently, the youth seek entertainment or answers outside of our church, consisting of males and females. Additionally, our youth need English speaking American raised role models considering the huge gap between our American youth and those raised in Egypt. There is a huge cultural gap which prohibits communication. Our servants do not understand the American lifestyle and cannot mentor our youth, which leads to spiritual famine, or even spiritual death. HELP PLEASE!!!
• How can the current Servants encourage the younger generation to serve and be more active doing so?
• How do I inspire my fellow servants and children? We lack unity what can I do?
• How do we commit ourselves to serving the Lord?
• How do we get realistic in our church serving? I do not feel we are in touch with our students’ inner psychological world of worries about school, studying, and so on. All we tell them is to pray, read the bible, and so forth. Can our spiritual fathers give better help than just words?
• How does one deal with distracting children during the Sunday School Classes? Can the servants use the time-out? Is it accepted to dismiss the child at least once? What would the effect be on the rest of the class?
• How does one win others to Christ? I have many kids in my High School Sunday School class who I worry about. I try to bring them closer to God but I feel many times like my efforts are useless. I am afraid I will one day be held accountable for not being successful in leading them in the right path. I have tried to visit them but the devil has stopped me every time in some way or another. I call them on the phone or text them but they often do not answer. What should I do? Also, I am struggling with laziness, loneliness, and depression lately.
• I am a servant at our church. I love it so much and serving there is a blessing for me. Lately, some fellow servants have been acting very rude with me and have been displaying very bad manners as servants, sometimes not even saying hello to me. I know it sounds trivial, but it really hurts my feelings and I'm starting to resent them. I know that is a sin. I try to fight those feelings and try to make friends with them, but it is now difficult. If I see them while I am praying, I am distracted because of the feelings I experience, so I can't fully pray spiritually. I'm worried that it will get worse but I don't want it to as it would affect our church. Should I stop serving and just be a normal church member so to avoid conflict?
• I am having a very difficult time in serving at church. I'm involved in too many things and I'm feeling swamped. There are only a few things that I'm genuinely committed to, and the others I do out of obligation. I don't want to be seen as involved in many things or preferred over other people.
  Now I am haunted with a feeling of guilt that if I leave, I will come across as an insincere and weak person who can't make up his mind about anything. I'd rather take one small task and do it with all my heart than do a whole bunch and be mired in frustration and confusion. Is it ever proper for a servant to step away from something that he has been given to do?
• I have a girl in my Sunday School class who suffers from her father’s overprotection and strictness. Also she is kind of lonely since not many girls talk to her, what should I do?
• I have been a Sunday School teacher for eight years, and my students although good and attentive, yet do not smile nor express happy emotions. Is this just a personality trait that is environmentally acquired, or are these kids suffering from some sort of internal burden? I would love an answer to my question because my aim is to serve them according to their needs.
• I have been moved in the Sunday School service from the 2nd grade class to the middle school girls class; and I need advice on some issues in this service. Do I have to share with the other two servants the private things I come to learn about the girls? If I visit one girl, do I have to tell the other servants I'm visiting them? I don't want to do anything that will cause my co-servant and Abouna to think I'm acting behind their back. And I don't want to disobey Abouna. I just want to understand how I can serve, where and when do I have the authority to act, what are my limits, and how to understand God's will for me.
• I have heard some unpleasant talk about the behavior of a person I know and care for. How do you manage to hear people's problems without letting them affect your spiritual life, especially if you are serving them?
• I teach 6th and 7th Grade Sunday School boys. Whenever I tell them to read the Holy Bible, they complain that it is boring, they do not understand it nor do they have time for it. How can we as servants improve such a negative attitude?
• I wonder what to refer to God with: "God", "Jesus", or the "Holy Spirit"? Also, I expect my Sunday school students (pre k-k) to use the name "Jesus" in their answers. However, they use "God".
• I work and study and also serve at Sunday school. I feel it is too much for me. Should I withdraw from church service until I finish my school?
• I would like to know new ways to reach out the children who do not come regularly to Sunday School.
• If, as a Sunday School servant, I am not being a good role model for the kids, and if in my private life I am also not being too careful about my spiritual life, will I influence the kids behaviour? Will I be held accountable for the their performance if they imitate me? Will I also be held accountable for their salvation? Should I stop serving?
• Is it bad for a servant to take a break from his service and everyone around him to calm his stress down?
• Many of the servants who serve with me at church and who are good friends of mine go to parties, drink, and may have girl friends. I am deeply concerned about them. How can I help them improve their spiritual life?
• My friend and I have been successfully serving together in church for the last three years. Unfortunately, my friend is moving to another city to work there. Why did God allow this when my friend and I have been doing a good job and reaping the fruit of our services?
• Often times we commit to serving at church but lose motivation very soon in spite of our love for God and His house. What is the solution?
• One of my Sunday School students is showing behavioral problems manifested in lack of interest in, and concentration on the lesson as well as in distracting the others in class. He/she seems to be attending Sunday school for motives other than benefiting from a spiritual lesson. I want to help him/her, but I do not know how. Any suggestions?
• Our young active priest has been moved to another church for more than eight months. As a result, division among the youth took place and they lost interest in attending their Friday meeting or the Bible Study. Although we tried visiting and telephoning the youth, yet there was no response. I have suggested that service coordinators hold a general meeting to discuss this big problem and also the idea of sending out some sort of a questionnaire for the youth to fill out concerning their spiritual needs and then to be analyzed by us. I am asking for your valuable advice.
• The high school group at my church is not very interested in hymns and deaconship. I've tried to encourage them to attend hymns classes, Tasbeha, or even just to come early on Sunday to attend the Liturgy as deacons. Unfortunately, very few of them do. I understand that not every person has the gift of hymns or deaconship but at the same time, is it OK to attribute that as the reason for all these boys? Do I keep pushing and encouraging?
• This year our church ordained our Service Coordinator as a priest and made me the coordinator. Now I serve Saturday and Sunday of every week and I have so much more responsibilities and meetings and updates. All of which I enjoy, but also they have gotten me involved in other services like helping plan retreats and organizing events. I am just overwhelmed with service now, all of which I still love. The problem is I am asking myself if I am serving Christ anymore or am I serving me now? I do not want to serve myself or my ego or my pride. I am really worried by that as my closest friend criticized me saying, "I am wondering why you are doing all this?" Another problem is that I am working by day and most of the weeknights. I am either serving or I am studying. This has taken a toll on my spiritual rule. I use to dedicate 3 times per day to spend time with God, morning, evening, and night. Now it's just morning and its really rushed because I wake up tired. There is no time for spiritual rule. There is only time which I choose to spend "relaxing" and not doing anything.
• What are the guidelines for new young servants to follow in preparing Sunday School lessons? Should all the servants serving the same class prepare the lesson regardless of who is presenting? Those among the old servants who recommend this approach do not carry it out themselves losing their credibility as role models for the young.
• What does (el Eftekad – Spiritual Visitation) mean in Arabic & English, because I do not think it is just visiting?
• What does your grace think of yelling as a means of capturing attention and obtaining quietude within my Sunday School class of 6th and 7th graders? I do that out of love and not of anger. I feel that is the only successful way, and besides I do not know any other way ,to cause my students to become quiet and obedient in order to listen to the lesson.
• Why do I sometimes feel I can be more effective spending time with people who are troubled and lonely and confused instead of trying to make money? I mean people who don't know their purpose in life or lost it. Is that the only way to bring the kingdom of God to them?
• With a Sunday School class of twenty ninth grade students and four teachers, do you think is it better to split that class into half with two teachers in each class, or continue like that?