ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the nature of service in service-learning. It then considers some of the trends in society which affect the service reflex. Here we found that social capital and connectivity in general has declined in society. In addition, we saw how enterprise culture and market behaviour encourages people to reconstruct themselves as competitors rather than members of society with communal values and responsibilities. Service consists of work or advice and is intangible, experiential, heterogeneous, complex and interactive in nature. Students doing service in service-learning often do so voluntarily. Volunteering is a sustained helping activity which is done freely and for no pay. It is formal or managed rather than informal and is relational in nature and can be carried out in the internal or external community. In the end we used the Christian view of charity as the standard or benchmark for service activity. The defining ingredient of service here is the impulse or intentions which drive it.
