Thankful series, part 2

Part 2: Community

Sunday night we got together with our homechurch (think homegroup or biblestudy) to have a Thanksgiving meal.  As I looked around a very full house filled with, the members of my group, and our friends, family, and neighbors, I thought to myself, this is what loving God is supposed to look like, this, right here, is what being a community is all about.

We began reading this book, this semester, and it has gently rocked my world.  It's a book about loving the non-Christians God places in your life, building relationships with them, and sharing with them how they can have a relationship with God, once you have earned that right (so to speak).  It is not rocket science, in fact, I often read a chapter and feel a weight has been picked up off my shoulders, because I can do this.  This, is evangelism that doesn't scare me.

As we've read through this book we've each began to build relationships with and love on people God has placed in our lives.  I feel like we've all become one big family, not just our homechurch, but the friends and family that we've been praying for over the past months.  We each care about the others and we each are invested in our goal of sharing God's love and truth with those around us.

One of the chapters in the book, is how evangelism is not something we have to do alone, reminding us that we are part of a body, and we need people of all different gifting to come together in order to be effective.  We've begun to serve as a community and I find that God is using that to knit us together even more.  There is something about serving with someone that makes you a team, you are reminded of why it is you're serving.

Sunday nights were once a time for family and I thought by starting this homechurch that I was losing that.  Instead I found that Sundays are still a time for family, just a bigger, more joyful family, with a lot more coffee and dessert eating.  I am so thankful this year for each one of them, for how different we each are, for all the truth that God has taught me through them.  I am so thankful for a community to walk this path with me, people who I can open up to when I fall down and people who I can rejoice with when I get it right.