Mark Sentell
The Garage at Living Faith · Book Two

Full Service

The Volunteer's Guide to Worship with a Wrench

You're not a healthy person helping a sick person. You're one person who's received grace helping another person who needs it.

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3 formats on Amazon · 89 pages · Volunteers, serving teams, and anyone who serves with their hands

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Cover of Full Service

You are not wasting your time

Most volunteers never get asked the most important question: why do you actually show up? People serve to feel useful, to find community, out of guilt, out of compassion. All of those are real, and none of them are shameful. But most of them don't last.

Full Service is Mark's letter to the volunteers of The Garage at Living Faith, and to anyone who serves with their hands. It traces the one motivation that doesn't run dry, grace already received, and follows it through the foot-washing, the towel and the basin, and a ransom for many.

Along the way you'll meet the people who taught Mark more about faith than most sermons: Tim, who started at twelve and whose handprint is in the concrete under the first lift. Kevin, the retired engineer who drives customers home. Chuck, the lead mechanic who keeps finishing jobs through a hard season at home. And Bryan, who laughs when the job goes sideways.

The title says it plainly. Not just a comprehensive repair. A life comprehensively offered.

This book will help you

  • Understand what really keeps you serving, and find a motivation that doesn't run dry
  • See the people you help as equals, not projects or charity cases
  • Recognize ordinary, hands-on work as real worship
  • Keep showing up through hard sessions, failed repairs, and personal pain without burning out
  • Discover the gifts you already bring, and find your place on a team that needs you

Includes a word to the new volunteer and one to the long-timer, four discussion questions for every chapter, a note for team leaders, and a Scripture index.

From the book

“You cannot sustainably give what you haven't received.”

“Showing up is integrity made visible.”

“The car is never really just the car. There's always a person and a story behind it.”

“This is worship with a wrench in your hand.”

“Do some things nobody will ever know about. Let the Father see it, and let that be enough.”

“You are not a resource to be used up. You are a person to be led, developed, and loved.”

Inside the book

Four parts, seventeen chapters

Each chapter works through one passage of Scripture, often with a close look at a single Greek or Hebrew word, and tells the story of the volunteers who live it out.

Part One: Why You're Here

Why people volunteer, why most reasons fade, and the one reason that lasts.

  1. 1Why Do You Show Up?Motivation is the engine of service, and only grace-fueled motivation lasts.2 Corinthians 9:7
  2. 2The Problem with CharityThe people we serve are peers, not charity cases. You look across, not down.Romans 3:22–23
  3. 3Loved FirstWe love because he first loved us. Overflow outlasts obligation.1 John 4:19

Part Two: Who You're Following

Jesus served from strength and took the lowest place. Here's what that looks like in real volunteers.

  1. 4The God Who Got His Hands DirtyJesus served from total security. Love moved him downward.John 13:3–5
  2. 5The Towel and the BasinHumility prepares ahead and stays cheerful when the job goes sideways.Philippians 2:3–8
  3. 6A Ransom for ManyContributors keep things running. Sacrificers change things.Mark 10:42–45

Part Three: Who You Are

The character of a volunteer who lasts.

  1. 7F.A.T.Flexible, available, teachable: not personality types, but daily choices.Luke 9:23
  2. 8Show UpReliability is a spiritual discipline and an imitation of God's faithfulness.Matthew 5:37
  3. 9Stay HumbleThe most dangerous volunteer is skilled, reliable, and serving his ego.Philippians 2:3–8
  4. 10Bring Your Whole SelfGod doesn't make generic people, and he doesn't call generic volunteers.1 Corinthians 12:4–7
  5. 11Love the Person, Not Just the TaskThe car is never really just the car.Luke 10:25–37

Part Four: How You Serve

Service as worship: done in secret, through hardship, in community, and for the long haul.

  1. 12Service as WorshipThe garage is an altar. The work is an offering.Romans 12:1
  2. 13Not for Your Own GloryHuman praise pays in full right away. Serve where only the Father sees.Matthew 6:1–4
  3. 14When It's HardThe fire doesn't destroy the steel. It makes it.James 1:2–4
  4. 15Community: You Were Not Made to Serve AloneThe garage only works as a whole body.1 Corinthians 12:14–17
  5. 16Serving for the Long HaulStay connected to the source, to each other, and to the work you're made for.Isaiah 40:29–31
  6. 17You Were Made for ThisYour good works were prepared beforehand, and so were the people who cross your path.Ephesians 2:10
Articles

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For volunteer teams

One chapter per team meeting

Full Service was written for the people who show up when they don't have to. It works for any serving team: food pantry, hospitality, home repair, children's ministry. Every chapter has four discussion questions at the back, and a note for team leaders shows how to use one chapter a month.

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Mark Sentell is the Founding Pastor of Living Faith Church in Fombell, Pennsylvania, and the director of The Garage at Living Faith, a ministry that fixes cars for free. By day he runs companies.

More about Mark →
The Garage at Living Faith Series

Read the whole series

Four short books from a church that fixes cars for free: one for the people whose cars we fix, one for the volunteers who fix them, one for leaders who want to start something like it, and one for the pastor who does all of it with a day job. About the series →