Nov 18: Sunday before Thanksgiving

Yesterday (Saturday) was the day of the annual Christmas parade in our little town. I imagine that many communities had their Christmas parades this weekend. Many churches use the Sunday before Thanksgiving to have a church wide dinner and a service of gratitude.

I want to be a person that is more grateful and shows more gratitude in the coming years. I've been working on noticing more of the little things around me and am realizing just how good I've got it.
By society's economic standards, I'm pretty middle class. I know many people that have way more money and way more stuff, but I also know that there are many that would love to live my life with my simple stuff.

I don't think much about my 12 year old car with its warning lights on that will cost more to fix than I care to spend right now (nothing critical, just money to spend) until a guy at breakfast needs money for a bus pass so that he can make it to meet with his parole officer each week so he doesn't have to go back to jail.
My intermittently working furnace is a pain to deal with, but my home is well insulated and a couple of space heaters work well to keep us comfortable. Meanwhile, cold weather shelters are opening up for those that have nothing more than the clothes they carry with them for warmth.
Even though I spend most of my days alone, I am slowly becoming a part of this little community called The Venues Church. I was surprised this morning at the number of people that I'm getting to know by name.

And I am learning their stories.
People from The Venues come from a lot of different religious backgrounds. In one small group today there were people that came from Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, and Assemblies of God churches. The auditorium is filled with a diverse economic group, as well. There are those that are homeless and picked up by a van and there are doctors, surgeons, business owners, executives, and everything in between.
There are families with young children and there are older, retired couples.
There are broken families, blended families, same gender parent families.
There are those that are gregarious and social, and there are those that are alone.

I think the one thing that we have in common is that we are all looking to connect with the God that is bigger than the god of our past religious experiences.
At this time last year, we didn't have a church home. Even today, I'm not sure that I would say we have a church home. The Venues is really more of a community than any other church I've known. I would say that we belong to a community.

And it is not an exclusive community.
It is a very inclusive community; believing that everyone needs to be loved and encouraging everyone to be driven by love.
I am glad that our journey has led us to this place and these people.
And to the God that is bigger than the god of religion.

John <><