Thanksgiving is all about family: the family you are born with and the family you choose to gather around you. In these days that run up to Thanksgiving, i’m going to focus on how families can be used to foster wider community and reach people in the kingdom. In that spirit, I wanted to share this quote from Leroy Barber in his book New Neighbor. I have savored this book. That’s the only word to use. I read a page every day or so, not rushing through like I want to but doling it out in bits like Christmas chocoloates.
The influence of a family, though, is seen in more than just the programs and ministries they do together. Our best moments in life and ministry are when life and ministry are one. When you can’t tell if this is ministry or just life. When I sit on the sofa watching football and some teens from the neighborhood stop by and join me. When my kids and the neighbor kids are playing in the yard and making too much noise and I tell everyone to be quiet. My wife, Donna, likes to cook on Thanksgiving. She naturally includes any kids who want to help. Our house is always open and there are always people there. This means they se the good and the bad. They see how our family relates to one another in positive ways and sometimes through the conflict. I don’t know if that’s ministry or just life at this point, but one thing I do know is that we are a family trying to live out our values. We want to be more than just people doing the task of ministry. We want to be good neighbors by sharing our lives with the people around us.
I don’t think I could have captured our family vision better than with that paragraph. Doing life as a ministry is a little harder to quantify and measure. I can’t count souls reached. There are certainly no offerings to gauge faithfulness. But I know that someday we will see the rewards of our commitment to living transparently in communion. Someday one of my extra “girls” is going to be throwing their doors open to some neighborhood kids and their mind is going to wander back to their days in our home. When that day happens — and if they happen to send me a facebook about it — I’m going to do a little happy dance as I listen to God say “Well done.”
In the meantime…there are decorations to put up, recipes to gather and rooms to clean up for the celebrations ahead!
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Well I love this article which talks about the family ministry which is such an amazing celebration thanksgiving..Yay God is great and I would love for you guys reading this comment to get into the holiday spirit and check out TheGiftREVOLUTION.com