Forming Faith Blog

4 Key Faith Practices: Service

Posted on July 21 2026 by Gregory Rawn

Service is the third of the Four Key Faith Practices. While many faith practices focus on growing our relationship with God, service is because of faith but for the benefit of others.

A group of volunteers doing an outdoor service project.
Faith Practices and Four Keys

This July, I am writing a blog series on the Four Key Faith Practices, a framework that comes from the doctoral work of the Rev. Dr. David W. Anderson. Its history and more information can be found at Milestones Ministry. Dr. Anderson recently wrote a blog post for us on his related Five Principles of Faith Formation. The Four Key Faith Practices framework is the basis for our faith-at-home devotional resources: Taking Faith Home (Revised Common Lectionary) and Sharing God’s Story @ Home (Narrative Lectionary).

The Four Keys are:

  1. Caring Conversations
  2. Devotions
  3. Service
  4. Rituals and Traditions

Today’s post is on the third Key: Service.

Faith Formation and Faith Practices

Spirit & Truth Publishing is a publisher of faith formation resources, but what do I mean by “faith formation”? The definition I use for Christian faith formation is:

Every action, experience, or relationship that nurtures a transformative relationship of trust with the Triune God and shapes the way we see and interact with God’s world.

You can learn more on our page “What Is Faith Formation?”

A faith practice (also called a spiritual practice or a spiritual discipline) is a repeated action intended to help someone grow in their faith. Faith practices, such as prayer, worship, fellowship, learning, and service, can be done individually or together with a partner, family, small group, or even a large community. 

Third Key: Service

Service is, at its most basic, actions intended to benefit another. I often refer to service as love in action. Our English word originates from the Latin word for slave, being in servitude to another. While we might justly recoil from the concept of enslavement, the apostle Paul often referred to himself as a doulos Christou Iesou, literally a “slave of Jesus Christ.” This servitude is voluntary and based on love. Service to Jesus and service to other people fulfill the Greatest Commandments of loving God and neighbor, since love without action is mere sentiment.

Service as a Faith Practice

Most faith practices, while possibly done with others, are about the relationship between oneself and God, such as prayer, worship, and learning. These are focused on the “loving God” part of the Greatest Commandments (as well as the “as yourself” add-on). Two categories—and two Keys—are focused on other people, including fellowship (Key 1: Caring Conversations) and service (Key 3). Faith practices within these two categories are not focused directly on one’s relationship with God (faith). The relationship growth (faith formation) is more of an intentional side effect. We serve because of God, not for God. We serve for those made in the image of God.

But, service based on faith also strengthens faith.

Many Manifestations of Service

Service is a general category that describes specific actions. This love-in-action will look different in different situations. Some acts of service can be as small and quick as a smile or a kind gesture, or as big as building a house. As long as an action is based on love and benefits another, it is an act of service. We can also differentiate service into short-term and long-term actions. I have a whole blog post about that, but short-term service (charity) is intended to help an immediate need, and long-term service (justice) works to end the cause of that need.

Alone and Together

Acts of service can be done as an individual or together with others. Individual service can help you focus on addressing the need. Service as a group (including as a family) can both allow for bigger acts of service and has the additional benefit of building relationships within the group (a bonding experience).

Service in Devotions?

Three of the Four Key Faith Practices can be done within a regular devotional time (Caring Conversations, Devotions (meaning faith reflections), and Rituals and Traditions (next week’s topic)). Our two faith-at-home devotional resources based on the Four Keys, Taking Faith Home (Revised Common Lectionary) and Sharing God’s Story @ Home (Narrative Lectionary), are intended to be used as resources for home devotional times. Both also include a service component. 

How does this work? Intentional acts of service start with a challenge, a plan, and often a conversation. These are what the Service component of these devotional resources does: it provides a challenge/prompt for conversation, reflection, and planning.

Benefits of Service

The most obvious benefit of service is to the one being served. That is the point, after all. But service and volunteering also benefit the person or people doing the serving.

A Few Tips

Many of these points are the same as last week.

  • Start small. This is the same advice as in last week’s Devotions post. Jumping into something huge might work for you, but it might be overwhelming. Adding something small to your daily or weekly routine gives you a starting point. And small acts of love are still valuable acts of service!
  • Schedule it. To add any habit or discipline to your life, you first need to figure out where you can fit it in. If you use a calendar or reminder app, add it in.
  • Have a conversation. As mentioned above, one valuable place to start the practice of service is to talk about it. If you are doing devotions, take a few minutes to discuss service possibilities.
  • Join forces. While it is certainly good to serve on your own, it can be helpful to work with others, not just in doing the service, but in maintaining some accountability so that it doesn’t fall to the wayside.

In Christ’s service,

Gregory Rawn (Publisher)

Order Faith Formation Resources

Are you planning for summer and the 2026-2027 faith formation programming? Order an affordable VBS-ready Learning Together unit and program-year curriculum for the Narrative Lectionary (Year 1, 2026-2027), Revised Common Lectionary (Years A & B, 2026-2027), or Key Bible Stories (non-lectionary, PK-2nd, 3rd-6th).

New RCL faith-at-home resource!

I’m excited to announce a new product series for Spirit & Truth Publishing: Taking Faith Home. Taking Faith Home is a set of weekly devotional resources (often distributed as worship bulletin inserts) that follows the Revised Common Lectionary. We offer it as a Church Year (Dec. 2025 to Nov. 2026) and a Program Year (Sept. 2026 to May 2027). You can also purchase by quarter, such as Summer and Fall. Learn more here and read a review!

VBS, Events, Retreats, and More!

Are you looking for resources for VBS, topical Sunday school, family/intergenerational events, retreats, and more?

Are you running behind on VBS? Learning Together can help. This series of affordable, five-lesson units on a variety of topics can be downloaded immediately, use basic supplies you probably already have, and are so easy to use that you can hand the leader’s guide out that day (though that’s not recommended)!

Like all of our faith formation resources, Learning Together is effective, theologically sound, and inclusive. Each unit can be used at any time in many different settings, but here are a few suggestions:

+ VBS: Paul’s Adventures (NEW!), Celebrations, Created to Care, God’s Gift of Water, Heroes of the Bible
+ Education, Events, and Retreats: The I AM Statements of Jesus (free!), Travelers (Immigrants and Refugees), Do Justice, Celebrations, Women of the Old Testament, Bible 101

Building Faith has recommended two of our units as VBS curriculum: Paul’s Adventures (reviewed in 2026) and Celebrations (reviewed in 2025)!

You can also read outside reviews on both our Do Justice and Created to Care units.

Our Resources

At Spirit & Truth Publishing, we might have exactly what you are looking for:

Stay updated by liking our Facebook page, subscribing to our e-newsletter, or following this blog!

Leave a Reply