Bread of Life Church of Fresno
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Bread of Life Church of Fresno
008 BoLCF Daily - Why Sheldon Serves
Sheldon Bacchus serves in many capacities at our church and this week he is sharing why! He discusses how for him, serving went from something he did because he was asked to, to something he wants to do to contribute to the growing family of God that people desperately need.
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Welcome to Bread of Life Daily, where we take a few minutes of the day to orient ourselves toward God and connect with a brother or sister in Christ. We hope this episode helps you love God, love people and serve both. Hi everyone, my name is Kyle Beeler and today I'm hosting Bread of Life Daily, and with me today is Sheldon Bacchus. Sheldon, how you doing, hey?
Speaker 2:how's it going?
Speaker 1:everybody Glad to be here, so why don't you just give us first brief intro?
Speaker 2:Who are you? Hey guys, I'm Sheldon, Born and raised in New York City. I've been in California 17 years. I still consider myself a New Yorker.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:That's the East Coast thing. If you're from New York, you're always from New York, even though I've been here in Cali for so long. So that's just a little tidbit. As you get to know me, you'll kind of see my little New York-isms pop out, yeah gotcha as we go, cool, and so you're married.
Speaker 1:You have a bunch of kids all running around People probably see you guys around all the time.
Speaker 2:Yes, so I've got a wife. We just celebrated our 17th anniversary back in October. Five kids, one granddaughter, so we got a nice, good-sized family and a dog.
Speaker 1:Great. So yeah, today Sheldon's going to be talking about why he serves. He serves in a bunch of different capacities. Him and all of his kids are all serving in various capacities, it seems, and his wife too. So, yeah, why don't you start just kind of share with us when did you start serving and when did you start caring about that?
Speaker 2:I'm going to say it would have been years ago when we first the first church that my wife and I were at together, they had this concept of there were no benchwarmers. So when you came into church, even as just a new visitor, and you started attending more frequently, they would grab you right away and get you working in something. So it was like, okay, I can get it, I can help out. It's a church and things need to be done. So I started doing that. But as I spent more time doing it, you started to develop relationships with people, lots of connections, lots of good people that you get to meet. But even in that, I think one of the big things that I cherished a lot was the time that you get to spend, and all the, I guess to me was the knowledge and wisdom, because there were a couple of the older guys that I would hang out with.
Speaker 1:And I would Kind of start soaking up their wisdom when you're just around them a lot more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was a sponge, I would just sit there and I would listen. I don't care how old I was. I tend to hang out sometimes with folks who are a little bit older than me because I'm just trying to learn, and so I would just sit there and listen. And there are times I'll go to them for advice and ask questions. They weren't technically my big brothers, but I would go to them and have that respect, like hey, there's my uncle here, let me go ask him, for I'm dealing with this or I'm dealing with that, and so being able to ask questions and get just good insight and good advice, so you kind of started out, you kind of got pulled into it, yeah, like hey, no one doesn't serve you, everyone serves, and then you know, so you're okay with that.
Speaker 1:But then you really started kind of enjoying it and being in it when you started meeting the people that were also doing it Is that kind of how it went.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I started building connections, knowing that you were part of something and that you, as a team, people had focus and we were doing something. We weren't just yeah, it's good to hang out, but we're actually doing things to help build the body. So, even being here at Bread Alive, yeah, we're spending time with folks and getting to know people, but we're actually have a tangible hand in helping build the body. Service goes on. Things have to be done. Like a joke around earlier, hey, how would you show up to church and there's no place to sit. We have to get all those things done and just be prepared to receive people. This is our house and we have guests that are coming here, so we just do what we got to do to receive them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it makes a lot of sense. I mean biblically, god is building a family, he's making a family, he's adopting sons and daughters and family to live in homes and we meet in homes. And so you're saying that part of why you serve is because you want to be a part of that. You want to be helping receive people who are meeting God in various stages of life, wherever their background is, wherever they're coming from, when they're going to come to church and God's calling them. There's got to be a people and a home to receive them into.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and I'm part of even each, every one of us. We have our walkers and how we got here, why we did, but each of us is a representation of of who God is. You can think about all these different personalities that we have in the world, but God has worked something in each and every one of us, and each one of us is unique, and so when we all serve or we all help or facilitate, in whatever fashion it is, we're all basically showing people hey, this is another aspect of God and I'm doing it through my service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so just for people that don't know, what do you do, how do you serve around Bread of Life?
Speaker 2:So here I was doing the men's ministry for a little bit. We're in a bit of just changing some things around for 2025. So I was doing that for a good long while. We had our men's monthly fellowship, had a great time with all the fellas, usher and Greetering, so Greetering right, yes, greetering, it's not a real word Ushering, greeter, did that for quite some time. Also, I'm head of security here Again, just helping to really take care of people. One of the things that even with my wife and I, when we were looking for a church before we came here, we wanted to be a part of something that we could help build. That was really, really important to us. We weren't going to just disappear on a bench or a pew somewhere and just kind of sit back like no, we want to be an active participant in helping build the church and build God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean and yeah, like you said, you and your wife and I mean your whole family, really anyone called by God has talents. You have abilities that God has given you. He has a calling on your life, things that he has given for you to contribute to the family. So I think anyone who knows you could totally say you guys are making the most of your talents and abilities. You're giving back as much as you can and it really makes a tangible difference. I mean, anyone that's had your wife's cooking at one of our events knows that wow, this made a big difference to me. Why don't you go ahead and just pray for people listening and for better life, just out of this idea of we serve because we want to help make a home and a family and we're building something together.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, most definitely, father. God, we thank you for your mercy and Lord, we thank you for your grace. And, father, we come here humbly, as your servants, lord, to do your will in this world, to do your will in the church, to open up our hearts to not only receive you, but to receive others who were just like us. We all came from somewhere, lord. We all were who we were, but then we met you and we decided that we wanted more and we wanted change. So, lord, we stand here, humbly, as your servants, and proud and honored to be a part of the plan, to be part of helping develop other people. We pray, lord, a blessing over everybody that attends, everybody that even hears this, and let them know that, despite what they're going through, whatever's going on, that God does love them and God sees them and sees their situation. In Jesus' name, we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen. Well, thanks for being here. Thanks for sharing. Appreciate it, Sheldon. Thanks for having me. This was here. Thanks for sharing. Appreciate it, sheldon. Thanks for having me. This was great. Thanks for joining us today. We hope this session will help you love God and people more. Now we'd love to hear from you. Send comments, suggestions or questions to daily at bolcforg For more about Bread of Life. Church of Fresno. Look us up online and reach out or, better yet, come join us. We hope you have a blessed day.