My Community

I'm starting to feel more a part of the community at The Venues Church. It feels like we've been attending and serving at The Venues for longer than a year, but I think last Christmas Eve was only the third or fourth time we went there.

Last Thursday was The Venues Christmas party.
Friday night we were out with two other couples from The Venues to listen to another Venues friend sing at a local place.
Sunday was church.
Today (Monday) I had breakfast with The Venues' student coordinator.
Tomorrow our small group meets for dinner, study, and visiting (fellowship, if you want to be churchy about it).
I don't know if we'll be going to the Blue Christmas service on Wednesday, but I will be back at The Downtown Venues on Thursday night and serving at the Breakfast Venues on Friday morning.

I am getting to know more people and we greet each other by name and with handshakes or hugs.
I find myself wanting to be around Venues people and am always inspired and motivated by their drive to serve others.

Sunday morning, this graphic was displayed during the worship service.

If you can't read it, it says that so far this year we have helped 48,611 people, worked 13,942 service hours, and worked 170 different service events!

One of the things that strikes me about these numbers is how specific they are. It didn't say we've helped nearly 50,000 people (to sound better) or generalize it to more than 48,000. But it counts each person and gives value to each life we impact and relationship we try to build.
Loving and serving individual people is what we do and what we encourage all followers of Jesus to do.
Each life -- every life -- is of value.

If you've ever felt like you don't fit in, like you have no community, or if you just feel like you've been set aside and forgotten, you would do well to spend some time listening to Pastor Phillip's message from yesterday. You can find it here.

YOU are of value!

John <><