Our Community Thrives, Celebrating Together

Through all the uncertainty that we have experienced during the pandemic in a time of crisis, communities have come together to provide support and comfort. As we are now able to travel and visit in person with family and friends this holiday season, our winter calendar is yet again full of things that bring us back into community. Our desire to attend community events has us bursting with joy and excitement. With the seasons of social distancing slowly diminishing, we make plans to celebrate the holidays with a greater awareness of this new normal, which is more important than ever before. We give thanks for the spirit of resilience and faith in God for outlasting the pandemic. It is the spirit of community that has become the paradigm for embracing our new normal.

As members of any community, people celebrate what they have in common and treasure the feelings that come from shared experiences. We too, as a community of faith, share in this experience. Community, as a word itself, connects us to one another. “It describes an experience so common that we never really take time to explain it. It seems so simple, so natural, and so human.” God never intended for us to live alone or apart from God.

God calls us to experience the Christian life in community with sisters and brothers in Christ. When we experience our lives together, we discover the strength and the great power of the gospel as a lived reality.

We experience God’s love together that “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

“Nothing of great value comes easily. To preserve our relationships, we must often pass through many difficulties and hardships. God gives us the gift of love to see us through.” We give thanks for his steadfast love that endures forever and that being in community this holiday season is not to be feared. Instead, it is to be celebrated and welcomed. This pandemic has shown us all the power of community. Through faith and God’s love, we have rediscovered the good news and one another.