Combined Effort ~ Community over Competition

Our Saturday night community group met after we worshiped together on Saturday evening and enjoyed some of our favorite take-and-bake pizzas. After we ate, we broke from our usual routine to join together and fill over 1600 Easter eggs with candy, gifts, and Biblical messages of hope and salvation for the Easter Egg hunt the next day. My 4 year old stood between two men, one old enough to be his dad, the other old enough to be his grandad (that's right, 3 seperate generations and the only link between them was the Body of Christ) and for close to an hour, they filled eggs with candy and passed them down so they could be sealed with tape. I was working at a different table most of the time and my wife was not working at that table either. It was an amazing thing to see a combined effort like that. My son was the only one there who would actually get a few of those pieces of candy the next day at the hunt, but here they were on a Saturday night, having been spiritually and physically fed, joining together as a community, as God's family, to do a simple task that might just spread the gospel message to a boy or girl or family from our community. They weren't concerned with the generational differences represented at that table, they were just there to fill eggs so families from our church could have a faith and fun filled activity the next day and likewise members of the community who might not have a relationship with Jesus, but might pause and hear a message of hope and truth that might lead them to salvation by grace through faith themselves. I thnk my son had just as much fun standing there filling eggs as he did the next day hunting for them and opening them. It is such a joy when we can put the competitive world aside and join together as a community in a combined effort. The Body of Christ is an awesome gift, and I am saddened whenever people argue that faith is a solo thing or that they believe in God but not His church. They clearly don't know what they are missing or what a blessing to their own faith the Body of Christ can be.