Things I Love About My Church Family.....

my utterly beautiful soul-sistah lindsey.

It's Turkey Day!!! Well, almost. This evening all the adult leaders/volunteers/churchgoers from Rosedale Church gathered at a family's home for chili, yummy desserts, games, and loud, loud, loud fellowship. (I did attend, so the latter is almost a given.) Thirty+ adults and kids squeezed into a living room and kitchen oh-so-tight, kids crawling under tables and over chairs and into laps, people spilling over onto couches and windowsills, balancing bowls of chili on their knees and yelling across the room for someone to bring them a napkin or another bowl of chili or a homemade rootbeer, because they're stuck between the table and couch and can't get out. A ridiculous game of Catchphrase in which my team was royally spanked, and of course the line-by-line replay of Nacho Libre by yours truly et al. :)

I still am humbled and amazed by the people that surround me every Sunday morning and evening. Humbled because I feel I don't deserve a community of friends that accepts me so willingly, openly, without hesitation. Amazed that God brought me to them at just the right time in my life, in a city of 1 million+.

And of course, since it is Thanksgiving week, I thought of more I'm thankful for...

...for community - in that I have found myself, in under 6 months of discovering Rosedale, part of a family that genuinely loves and looks out for each other; a group of people from different backgrounds, different styles of worship, different stories of faith - who come together and worship the Lord Jesus as one.

...for a church family that is interested, above all else, in pursuing God's will in their own individual lives and in the direction of the church as a whole.

...for people that accept the crazy, loud, fun-loving side of me and are perhaps a little crazy themselves too....at times...:o)

...for a God who gave His followers the Church, so that we can experience the presence of Christ here on earth, His unconditional love, His compassion, His sense of humor, His arms of comfort during times of sorrow, His shouts of joy during times of excitement. His hands and feet, still touching and walking among those of us left here on earth.