More than a meal

Last night a wonderful thing happened at the warehouse. A bunch of friends got together
for a meal...

We didn't grow up together, some on one side of the track some on the other and we don't share similar backgrounds or jobs or religious roots. We don't live in the same neighborhoods or attend the same social events. We aren't all well to do (some of us don't even have jobs)... so how is it that we've all become friends? It's simple...

He broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. Eph 2:14

One of the deep joys of the Crosswind story is the new sense of community we have found. Just this week, some people from the apartments (people who on the average have about $700 a month), made homemade soup and delivered it to all the residents over 50. And they reported on the smiles and the tears as people received this simple yet profound gift from their neighbors. There's something about being included, about feeling like you're 'one of them', you know, the insiders.... and little things matter.

A Crosswinder took a friend to a football game. He had been his whole life. His friend, never. Just Monday a Crosswinder took a friend to Cracker Barrel in Tupelo. She had never been to a Cracker Barrel. She is 40. A friend was invited to have a birthday lunch at Dinner Bell. He'd never had one, not with doctors and bankers. He's 53. And what these friends keep telling other friends is that for the first time in their lives, they feel like a part of the community they grew up in.

So now you are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. Eph 2:19-20

I don't know how we got so divided. Black and white, rich and poor, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian and Pentecostal... the proverbial 'us and them' at every turn and in every way we can think of. But Jesus broke down the walls of seperation and made us all one family. And friends our great joy is to get to experience it... all God's children, living and loving in practical love and unity, choosing to be together and live life together.

Last night we had a meal together, but it was more than a meal...

It was community.

BC