The Blessings Abound!

Now that I am feeling some better, I am going to try to wade back into the blogging water on a regular basis!

Sunday was Community of Joy's second 2014 Be A Blessing Sunday.  And what a huge success it was!  The idea is that we are blessed by God so that we can be a blessing to others.  But often we live in our boxes, the ones with wheels, the ones where we sleep, and the one where we gather on Sunday morning to worship our amazing God!   When we inhabit our boxes, we miss seeing lots that is happening right in our community under our noses but we are unaware of.  So on these 4 Sunday's in 2014, we committed that the church would leave the building and be a blessing in our community.

Oh the places you can go and the lives you can touch when the church leaves the building... a team went to Wicomico Nursing Home to read to residents...

Oh the places you can go and the lives you can touch when the church leaves the building... a team went out into the neighborhood to pick up trash....

 The trash picked up...

 The cleaned up park....

Oh the place you can go and the lives you can touch when the church leaves the building.  We sent a team over to the Hospital to give out Lollipop Encouragements to the staff there.  We made these at our first Be A Blessing Sunday and more this time....

And the next morning, we found a post from someone who works at the hospital who found one on her desk.     

Oh the places you can go and the lives you can touch when the church leaves the building.  We sent a team of folks over to Giant to return shopping carts and help shoppers...

Oh the places you can go and the lives you can touch when the church leaves the building.  We have a commitment to provide activities in the ministry center for those who are unable to go out or who prefer to work on a project that will go out later. (That also leaves folks behind so that if guests come, they find someone who can explain what we are up to and invite them back next week.  In this case, we had two that came and one who actually sat down and helped with the scrap books for Pinehurst and even stayed for lunch)  So, two groups worked inside: one on a set of scrap books documenting the history of Pinehurst Elementary School and one making more lollipop encouragements that we will give out in August.

Then we came back together at 12 noon and shared stories and the blessing of a meal and deeper connection together.

And to conclude this post, I want to share a story that Miss Tami Brown sent me and said I could share here..."I didn’t want to sign up for the Nursing Home reading, it was too soon, with Mom and Dad just having many days in a nursing home.  I picked the lollipop project, thinking that I helped make them a few months ago, it would be neat to hand them out.  I truly didn’t think about the impact of seeing Mom’s room, or some of her nurses. I could feel myself getting a little teary eyed, but the group I was with was so full of positive energy I couldn’t stay in the teary eyed very long!  One of the nurses, who I felt was a bit of a grump the whole time Mom was there, her eyes lit up with the lollipop, I know she has 100’s of patients and 100’s of patient’s family running through, but I know she remembered me, when she said “How are you doing”?  I said ok, and THANK YOU for all you did and are doing.  Be a Blessing became very personal for me on the 3rd Floor of Layfield Tower.  Thankful to go to a church that pushes us out of the boat (church), where stretching yourself even through tears is the right thing to do!"

Looking forward to the next Be A Blessing Sunday on August 31!  And for the stories that will come from that and from other ways that our folks engage with our community in between these Sundays!