- 1 Principles of a Servant — The Good ShepherdBefore any of us stood before a class, a youth group, a home, or a hospital bed as a servant, someone else stood first. The Lord Jesus Christ, the Master of all…
- 2 What Is Expected of a ServantHaving seen in the previous lesson who our Master is — the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep — we now turn to the question His example presses…
- 3 Love in ServiceEverything we have learned so far about the servant — the Good Shepherd pattern, the expectations of Scripture and wisdom and integrity — rests upon one foundation, and without that foundation every…
- 4 Responsibilities in ServiceWe have looked at the shepherd-heart our Lord modeled for us, at the long list of expectations the New Testament lays upon the servant, and at the love without which none of…
- 1 Stumbling Blocks of the Christian ServantEvery servant, sooner or later, comes up against a stone in the road that the ordinary believer does not see. It is not that the servant is a greater sinner, and it…
- 2 Discovering Our TalentsThere is a quiet question that settles over every servant, sometimes in a moment of stillness after liturgy, sometimes in the middle of a sleepless night: what exactly has the Lord given…
- 3 Commitment in ServiceEvery servant begins, somewhere, with a first yes. Perhaps it was whispered at a retreat, perhaps offered in a quiet conversation with a father of confession, perhaps almost stumbled into when an…
- 4 TribulationEvery servant, if he walks long enough, arrives eventually at the door of tribulation. It is not a door we would have chosen, and our Lord does not scold us for the…
- 1 The Fear of GodOf all the things Scripture asks of us, perhaps none is more misunderstood than the fear of God. The phrase comes to our modern ears with a cold edge, as though the…
- 2 Being Filled with the Holy SpiritOur Lord did not send His disciples into the world with only a teaching. He sent them with a Person. The Holy Spirit, poured out upon the Church at Pentecost, is not…
- 3 The Vitality of ConfessionEvery servant, sooner or later, has had the quiet experience of wondering why the fire of ministry has grown dim even though nothing obvious has changed. The prayer rule is still kept.…
- 1 DiscipleshipOur Lord's final commandment to His Church was not 'make members,' and it was not 'make attenders.' It was make disciples. That single word has shaped the entire Christian centuries since, and…
- 2 MentorshipIf the last lesson set our eyes on discipleship as the general calling of every servant, this one narrows in on the particular relationship that has always been its backbone: mentorship. The…
- 3 Disciples — St AndrewSt. Andrew walks quietly through the Gospels. He is named less often than his brother, speaks less often than Peter, and leaves behind no epistle. Yet the Church remembers him as Protokletos…
- 4 The Making of a Disciple — St John the BelovedThe Church has given St. John the Evangelist many names — the Theologian, the Beloved, the Eagle of Patmos — but perhaps the deepest of them is hidden in the way he…
- 1 Courage in ServiceThere are seasons in every servant's life when the work itself requires not only fidelity but courage. A word must be spoken that no one else is willing to speak. A person…
- 2 Avoiding ServiceBefore we can labor faithfully in the Lord's vineyard, we must recognize the many gentle and respectable ways by which a servant's heart learns to avoid the work. The Scriptures are candid…
- 3 Trading with Our TalentsThe parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14–30) is one of our Lord's most searching stories about the life of a servant. A master goes on a journey and entrusts his property to…
- 4 Danger — Caution in ServiceService in the Church is a holy work, and for that very reason it is attended by spiritual dangers that the servant must learn to recognize. The enemy does not waste his…
- 1 Time ManagementFor the servant, time is not a neutral resource to be optimized. Time is the medium in which the Lord has chosen to work out our salvation and the salvation of those…
- 2 The Christian AmericanMany of the servants this curriculum is written for live as Orthodox Christians in a country that is not ancestrally Orthodox, and whose cultural air is shaped by values that sometimes agree…
- 3 The Servant and Social MediaEvery generation of Christians has had to think carefully about its new technologies — scrolls, codices, printing presses, radio, television. In our generation, the technology most intimately shaping souls is the handheld,…
- 1 The Gospel of the Second MileTucked inside the Sermon on the Mount is a single image our Lord drew from the streets of occupied Palestine: a Roman soldier compelling a Jewish passerby to carry his pack for…
- 2 Do You Love Me?Near the end of the Gospel of John, after the Resurrection and before the Ascension, our Lord meets Simon Peter on the shore of Galilee and asks him a single question three…
- 3 HumilityThe Fathers are unanimous that humility is the foundation virtue — the one from which every other grows, and without which every other collapses. 'Humility,' says St. Isaac the Syrian, 'is the…
- 1 FaithFaith is the ground on which every other virtue stands. A servant without faith may still work, still speak, still organize — but nothing he does will carry weight in the kingdom,…
- 2 Life of VictoryThere is no Christian who has not wondered, in the middle of a long dark night, whether this fight is worth it. There is no servant who has not at some point…
- 3 Christology & Us — Means of Working with Divine GraceThis final lesson of Unit 3 gathers up the whole curriculum into a single, central truth: that the Christian life, and therefore the servant's life, is not our own striving decorated with…