By Rev. Dr. Libby Grammer
Church is one of those unusual places in our society where people come together who might not otherwise encounter one another in life. People from different social and economic strata sit in pews together. People of all abilities – typical, different, and everything in between – come together to worship and study. Young adults and children mingle with older adults and empty nesters. We learn from each other, are energized by each other, are given space to live authentically together.
I can’t help but think the world would be a better place if more spaces like this existed: places we can vote differently but come together over shared love of neighbor, places we can listen fully, recognizing the humanity of every individual, no matter our differences. Having a church family with so many different kinds of people as my chosen family makes me wonder how people without this kind of community make it in the world.
So many of us silo ourselves with our work or nuclear family. Or we find people our own age through events and activities but never reach beyond our own age group or interests. And by choosing only civic and cultural activities that match our own interests, we miss out on the beautiful woven tapestry of people in this world.
God invites us into a different kind of community, one that is varied and yet united, one that is mixed and yet distinct, one that is united but not uniform. In the best of church families, there’s not a call that everyone believe and act exactly the same, but that the family grows together as disciples of Jesus. This journey of faith is much easier with chosen family alongside us. As we “work out our salvation with fear and trembling,” how much more can we feel out God’s purpose together, rather than apart?
Galatians 3:28 – “There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.”
We Are Better Together. We Are Better With You.
Each thread brings a uniqueness and a gift to the whole. Without each and every person and their varied gifts and abilities, we would be lesser for it.
1 Corinthians 12:12-27 (selections) – “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many members yet one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the members of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.”
I’m grateful for you, church family, and I hope that our gratitude shows in our commitment to our church family – through regular meeting together for worship and study, through serving our community together, and through our giving back of our resources into the ministry and mission of this church family in Martinsville & Henry County and around the world.
Hebrews 10:24-25 – And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds,5not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
What a beautiful tapestry we weave as the family of God!