Wow, it's November already, and I'm thinking of Thanksgiving – food, family, and football!  I’m sure you’re already tracking with me!  I am so thankful for each and every one of you!  Your presence in my life, and in the life of my family, is one of God’s true blessings.

I am also thankful that, as Christian broke his arm in a football game last month, the injury wasn’t worse than it was.  He is almost back to normal… such as it is in our household!  Speaking or “normal” in our household, we are all excitedly thankful for the news that our family is going to growing sometime around June 1 of next year!  Surprised, but thankful!

There is a great call-to-worship Scripture that the Message renders, "Enter with the password: "Thank you!" Make yourselves at home, talking praise. Thank him. Worship him." (Psalm 100:4)

“Thank You” is the password into God’s presence.  He is always present with us, but it is when we express gratitude to Him that His presence is made known.  Thanking God is actually acknowledging His presence in our lives!  When we’re ungrateful, or take life for granted, we can so easily miss the awesome, WHOAH!-inspiring presence of God. 

You see, I have this problem – I don’t want to miss anything.  My inner desire to experience everything this life can possibly offer has led me down some pretty dark and difficult roads.  Something that is really cool about God is that He doesn’t want me to miss anything either.  What I have learned is that He wants me to experience what He has planned for me to experience – He wants me to embrace the life that He has given me, and really live!  But, God knows that there are a lot of things to experience in this world that are not what He has planned for me.  As a matter of fact, God’s desire is that I not experience those things which cause me to miss what He has for me.  The best part of all this is that the things God has for me to experience are so much more amazing than those things I might experience outside of His plan for me.  When I experience everything God has to offer, I find that I absolutely am not missing anything – and I experience, above all else, that awesome, WHOAH!-inspiring presence of God!

When we experience the presence of God, we can’t help but be thankful.  This is a great opportunity to reflect on what the word “thanksgiving” means. The Hebrew word translated as “thanksgiving” is tôwdâh (pronounced to-daw’). Tôwdâh means to literally extend the hand in adoration or appreciation.  Being thankful is saying “thank you”, but it’s also extending the hand – doing something for someone… doing something for God! 

Let’s continue to do the work… often difficult work… of merging faith, family, and culture.  As we extend our hands, let’s pray that we see our community transformed as we be the body of Christ!  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Be the church!

It doesn’t seem like much of a stretch to say that most congregations struggle most with how to interact with, and impact, their local community.  This struggle can probably be attributed to many factors, but there are two that stand out to me. 

First, (being very candid and honest here) we get comfortable with putting our lives into “sections”, i.e. “this is my ‘church time’, this is my ‘work time’, this is my ‘family time’, and this is my ‘me time.’”  When this way of thinking guides our lifestyles, it becomes increasingly difficult for church members to see the need to impact the community.  The ultimate danger with this is that the church eventually loses touch with the community.

Secondly, congregations can be too “pastor-driven.”  I will only speak for myself, but I do see this in many of my peers in the pastoral vocation – there is a tendency toward “Lone Ranger ministry.”  This is due to many of us being natural “work-a-holics”, but also due to the perceived expectations of the congregation.  Most Lead Pastors feel expected (even if it is not actually the congregation’s expectation) to be all things to all people at all times.  Pastors can get spread too thin really quickly, and get so caught up in equipping and caring for the congregation, that they themselves get completely disconnected from the community.

This is where I have to express how excited I am to pastor Oaklawn!  You get it… WE get it!  It is encouraging to have the number of conversations that I do, which someone is excited about being “Jesus with skin on” at home, on the job, or in the marketplace.  It is also fantastic to be surrounded by this church family, who takes ownership of the responsibility of ministry!  I love the fact that I’m not expected to do everything for everybody.  That is what leads to pastor burnout – one person cannot do everything, plus we get too busy putting out fires and handling everyone’s issues, that we have no time for a major part of what God has called us to – be the hands and feet of Jesus in the community.

As I write these words, I’m sitting in Java Roasting Café.  Today, God has provided opportunities for me to meet Todd (who attends LakePointe Church) and pray for his wife as she recovers from knee surgery, to visit with Carol about how much she is enjoying retirement from teaching, to invite a young couple to the worship gathering this Sunday at Oaklawn, and to smile and say “Hello” to countless people as I have positioned myself right by the front door.  As a bonus, I’ve just had a big fun “debate” with ten people I don’t know about the football game scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving (ya’ll know which game I’m talking about)!

In the Message paraphrase of the Scriptures, James 3:18 says, “You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.”

Let’s continue to do the hard, and sometimes messy, work of merging faith, family, and culture.  As we do, let’s pray that we see our community transformed as we be the body of Christ!  Love God.  Love your neighbor.  Be the church!