It’s a good chance that at some point this Thanksgiving someone will ask you, ‘What are you thankful for?’ This question will most likely be asked when you’re sitting around the dinner table feeling stuffed, and the tryptophan is quickly kicking in. It’s a great question — one we should be asking one another more than just once a year at the end of November.
How will you answer this question? Will you say that you are thankful for family, friends, a job, and a place to live? Or will this question lead to a blank stare coupled with awkward silence because it’s been a challenging year that’s left you with not much
to be thankful for?
I’ve had my share of Thanksgivings where I could not stop talking about all that I was thankful for, but those years have been balanced out by others where I had nothing to say.
There is one thing in particular that I am thankful for this Thanksgiving, and it’s something that I have not given voice to in previous years because it feels a bit strange to be grateful for.
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility is usually a way of describing people who are flexible physically speaking. Notably, flexible people can touch their toes — something I’ve never been able to do. But this is not the kind of flexibility that I’m thinking about this Thanksgiving.
I’m thinking about being in a community of flexible people. This past September, GENESIS celebrated nine years of existing as a church. I can’t even begin to articulate how much change has taken place over the past nine years. We are not who we once were, and
we are no longer where we started.
The mission and message have not changed, but how we go about seeking to accomplish the mission and message has. We’ve never been married to methods, which means many things have changed over the years. We once were a community of 35 people but now there are over 800 people gathering each weekend. Clearly, because of the number of people who now call GENESIS home, we have had to make many changes to ensure as best we can that our church is both healthy and
I’m not always thankful for change because change can be hard, but I am thankful to be part of a community of flexible people. I am thankful that, as the community has evolved, people have remained committed to God’s mission. I am thankful to be around people who are less concerned about holding on to how things once were because they are more excited to embrace all that God is doing in the present.
Because most of you won’t be sitting around the Davis Thanksgiving table, I wanted to tell you
comfortable and known so that we might continue to have fresh stories that proclaim how God continues to do ‘immeasurably more.’
