Making a Difference by Mary Margaret Sinnema

My dear friend Mary Margaret is the Director of Children's Ministry at Piedmont Community Church. She writes frequently on issues of faith, family and community. I am thrilled that she has granted me permission to re-print the following article that was originally printed in the PCC Messenger on January 14, 2006.

I hope Ms Edleman does not mind the free promotion of her book, but I thought I would risk it to share MM's perspective on a powerful path to finding more meaning in our lives.

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We didn’t make it to the 9 p.m. can­dlelight service on Christmas Eve as we had planned. Instead, at that hour we sat down to our Christmas dinner after having returned from the Berkeley Men’s Shelter.

At the shelter, we had set a fes­tive table, took menu orders and served a holiday feast to 47 cheerful and weary men who are used to lining up to help themselves to supper in their temporary “home.” The ministry leaders from our church made it possible for the group of families who volunteered that night to make a difference for these men on Christmas. Some children sang them Christ­mas carols, most sat and talked and laughed and ate with them at the tables. One gentleman’s response was to make wire jewelry for the girls, while the rest of the kids circled around to watch. The evening was a warm, comfortable and natural exchange.

This past year, I began to gain a deeper understand­ing of serving. One important concept that I’ve learned is called Service Learning. It’s about a shift away from com­munity service in which the service is an obligation of the haves to give to the have-nots, to a way of understanding the reasons for the need in the community, and learning ways to help heal the problem. These healing acts develop compassion and respect for those served, and give meaning to the service in a social, political and economic context. This “Reciprocal learning” results in learning about the lives of those served and also about oneself.

Recently, I found the inspiring book I Can Make A Dif­ference by Marion Wright Edelman. In it, she asks, “What kind of people do we want to be? What kind of people do we want our children to be? What kind of moral examples can we be to make our children strong inside and empow­ered to seek and help build a more just, compassionate and less violent world?”

She states that “Jesus taught us ‘Man can not live by bread alone’ but His message is in danger of being lost as so many of our children of privilege and poverty chase mate­rial idols that fade, and stuff themselves with the cultural junk foods of violence, drugs and material things that fail to fill the deeper hunger for community and purpose all hu­mans share.” So we “must lift a strong counter voice to the corrupting messages of our culture and teach our children that they can make a difference.”

The messages are illus­trated in sections:

I can make a difference in the world by:
• Loving myself
• Treating others respectfully and fairly
• Being courageous
• Aiming high and holding on to my ideals
• Caring and serving
• Being honest and telling the truth
• Persevering and not giving up
• Being determined and resourceful
• Being grateful for the gift and wonders of life
• Working together with others
• Being compassionate and kind
• Being non-violent and working for peace

These are lifelong ideals to model. So let us all seek those opportunities to serve and learn with our families and friends new and old. You may miss candlelight services and such, but you’ll be making a difference.