Dear Friends in Christ,

Saturday is National Rebuilding Day, when many organizations—including Grace—send teams to repair the homes of families in need.  If you know how to fix a leaky faucet, this day is for you.  The work demands all kind of skills—carpentry, electrical repair, gardening, painting.

But I want to suggest to you these skills are not the ones that matter most in the end.

The point of the day is home repair, of course.  But a whole lot of other things happen in the process.  Two people painting side by side wind up talking with one another about their worries.  The newcomer carrying the lumber and the long-timer hammering it in place discover an ease in working together.  The teenager who came mostly motivated by community service hours leaves with a heart for service.

What matters is not only completing the task.  What matters is the community, cooperation, and generosity of heart cultivated in the process.

When we undertake these tasks because of God and for God, our spirits are changed, too.  We find ourselves drawn more deeply into discipleship—which is to say that we find ourselves getting what it is that Jesus was talking about in the gospels.

I encourage you to come tomorrow, whether for the whole day or for just a little part of it.  (Robert Schultz would be glad to connect you.). You don’t need to know anything about plumbing, or wiring, or anything else.  You just need to come ready to be changed by the experience, and by God.

Yours in Christ,

Anne+