The Quiet Cup: My Community is a Blessing
Welcome back to The Quiet Cup. Each week this month, I’ve been slowing down to name a simple gift the Lord has placed in my life. Today, my heart is thankful for my church community: the brothers and sisters in Christ who worship, serve, learn, repent, feast, sing, and grow alongside us.
One of the sweetest mercies of this season is that my church family is not only my church, but also my neighborhood. The people we sit beside on Sundays are the same faces we pass on walks, the same families we see at the mailbox, the playground, or the local coffee shop. We wave across the street, share life updates in driveways, and catch up while pushing strollers and lawnmowers. It is such a gift to worship and live with our local body of Christ.
This nearness has given me a living reminder that being part of a local Body is not optional for believers. It’s not something we can opt out of as followers of Christ, because we are the Church. It’s the family God has woven us into, with real lives, real needs, real joys, and real proximity. When encouragement, accountability, or prayer is needed, it is quite literally right next door.
“Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.”
— 1 Thessalonians 5:11 (ESV)
There are moments when the blessing of proximity is so obvious, like when we’d just had our daughter two Christmases ago and neighbors brought us food and checked in often. Or more recently, when a neighbor was unable to get to their lawn maintenance and my husband was able to blow leaves and fix some toppled stones in their driveway. We need each other, and what a grace that is!
So today, I am thankful for shared worship and shared sidewalks. I am thankful for fellowship and meals, and borrowed tools, exchanged recipes, and unhurried porch conversations. I am thankful for the “let me know if you need anything” moments that aren’t just words, because help can be there in minutes. I am thankful for all the ways we’ve been blessed by our neighbors, and the ways we’ve been able to bless in return. There is something so special about being able to live out “love your neighbors” in such a concrete way.
I am also equally grateful for the wider Church. The believers I may never meet in this life, from every generation, culture, and continent, who proclaim the same gospel, read the same Scriptures, and belong to the same Savior. What a miracle: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one family (Ephesians 4:4-6). We are part of a family so much bigger than our own neighborhood, yet God has also rooted us in a particular place with particular people.
So today, I give thanks:
for my local church down the street,
for my spiritual family across the globe,
for the saints who came before us,
and for brothers and sisters who will come after.
I hope you are part of a local body of Christ, and I pray you’ll be thankful for it today. May we continue to build up, to stay, to forgive, to notice, to serve, and to love as those eternally bound together in Christ.
Happy stewarding!
