Two men were walking through a field one day when they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly they darted toward the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon evident they wouldn’t make it. Terrified, one guy shouted to the other, “Hey, send up a prayer, John. We’re in for it!” John answered, “I can’t. I’ve never prayed in public in my life.” “But you must!” begged his friend. “The bull is catching up to us.” “All right,” said John as he was breathing hard, “I’ll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the table: ‘O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.’”
Are you laughing? I hope so.
If the month of November is remembered for anything, it would be Thanksgiving. You know it’s that time of the year where we eat way too much turkey and sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.
In the past, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we traditionally held a Thanksgiving Love Feast. This is a time when our church family and others come and enjoy a Thanksgiving-type meal together. In light of our new mission statement, we will be changing the focus of this event. Instead of our church coming together and enjoying a meal, this year we will go out into the community and serve the poor or those less fortunate. We will enjoy the Thanksgiving holiday by putting “Love into Action.”
And we are going big! Each week GAP Food Bank feeds 400 families who are struggling
to keep up, pay the rent, and provide for the their families. This year we are taking up the challenge to feed 400 GAP families a
Thanksgiving meal – turkey and all the fixin’s. We are challenging our church to provide these 400 Thanksgiving meals, but we’re not going to stop at giving and providing these meals. We are going to take over GAP Food Bank (literally we are getting the keys to the facility) and run the entire operation where we organize, pack, and give out these 400 meals, blessing these needy families. We desire to show our thankfulness to God for his provision and goodness by giving back and blessing others – that they might also be thankful. It’s going to be quite the undertaking, but we know you, LBF, will rally to help people in our community. The Saturday before Thanksgiving, Collecting Food + Distributing Food = Loving Our Neighbors.Our hope is to bring into some people’s lives in our community the words of Jeremiah who said: “I will never forget this awful time, as I grieve over my loss. Yet I still dare to hope when I remember this: The unfailing love of the Lord never ends!” Lamentations 3:19-25 (NLT)
As we approach another Thanksgiving, I pray that we will be able to bring some hope into the lives of people who need it the most.
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