Family Makes The Difference

CHURCH MEMBERS WORK TOGETHER TO BETTER COMMUNITY

For those of you who don’t have a church family, it’s hard for me to explain how much having a church family means to me.

This past weekend, our congregation in Fayetteville had an “all-church mission Sunday.” We encouraged everyone to wear work clothes and stay after worship to help with one of two projects addressing two of the church’s mission priorities: hunger and caring for creation. As the organizer, I was nervous about whether we’d publicized enough and whether the weather would be good that day. I must admit, I was also concerned that perhaps as a church family we hadn’t stressed enough what it means to be brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ. What if church members were only attending church to nurture themselves and not to serve others in the world?

Sunday was Reformation Sunday, and as Presbyterians, we had a “Kirkin’ of the Tartans” - complete with kilts and bagpipes. Worship was magnificent, with God glorified, and those attending were Spiritually strengthened for the upcoming week. But as I slipped out of worship early to prepare lunch for those who might stay to “work,” I wondered how much of the food I’d be packing up as leftovers.

Surely, most would want to go home to get things done around their own homes - or watch football.

And then people started coming through the door: Those who regularly attend, and others who I hadn’t seen at church in a long while - with their children.

They were hungry - not just for food - but to make a difference. We went through all the wheat bread;

then the white bread; and finally used up all of the hamburger buns we could find with a jar of peanut butter.

Half of the work crew set out to remove invasive plants on the church property. The other half crammed into cars labeled as “teams” for the “CEO Hunt” - gathering as much as they could in an hour from a list of needs from Community Emergency Outreach.

The “invasive plant” crewused clippers, chain saws and strength to remove plants destructive to our natural environment, thus benefiting the insects, birds and other wildlife depending on native plants - which the invasive plants push out. We piled up a pile of brush easily 10 feet tall, 15 feet deep and perhaps 70 feet long. Don’t believe me?

I have the photos to prove it!

The “CEO Hunt” teams created a pile of their own: canned goods stacked on the pool table, dwarfed only by the mountain of toilet paper gathered.

The mission objectives of the day were certainly met - and that was impressive.

Members and visitors of the congregation learned more about the need to remove invasive plants, and the church grounds were much improved. Those in need of food and toiletries will be served by the generous donations of those who gave to the young people knocking on their doors.

But God had an even more important goal achieved last Sunday.

Laughter, cooperation, pure joy, commitment, dedication and living into who God has called us to be, strengthened the bonds of our family tie to one another - with Jesus Christ as our brother and God as our parent. I witnessed my grandson jumping up into the arms of other adults as he would with any aunt or uncle and bantering with other children as he does with his closest friends. I saw men and women working sideby-side as true brothers and sisters, when they hadn’t known one another’s name when the worship service ended.

We were tired when we left, but we’d been fi lled with God’s Holy Spirit. I love worship: the music, the opportunity to hear God’s word proclaimed in ways that push me to re-commitmyself as a follower of Jesus Christ, and the opportunity to pray together with my church family. I also enjoy study groups and classes in which I learn more about Holy Scripture, fellowship when the church family gets to enjoy one another as brothers and sisters, and the love of God we show one another when one is in need.

But for me, what brands us as family - brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ - is living into what Jesus taught his followers to do: to serve. And I see it time and again: When we work side-by-side in serving, we recognize each other as a brother or a sister. The scales fall from our eyes, and we see our true selves as God created us. We learn who we can trust, who will be there for us, as our brother or sister, and that makes all the difference. For me, it fills my life with hope because, regardless of our faults and the evils of this world, I have brothers and sisters to stand with me and by me as my church family. And that members of my “own” family are also a part of my church family is more than I believed God would bless to me.

I give thanks to God for those blessings, and I wish for each of you a church homeand church family where you can serve God by serving others.

THE REV. LESLIE BELDEN IS A MINISTER OF THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (U.S.A.).

Religion, Pages 10 on 11/02/2013

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