Wednesday

Lyssa Kolb

In my procrastination to write about Community at Commons Church, I googled the word "community" four different times, watched half a season of the comedic tv series Community and popped in on three different Commons families with little to no notice and stayed too long at all three homes. The first two things weren't overly helpful but the third was... and not just because I was given free food! The third helped me realize we have something special at Commons Church... our sense of community and involvement in each others lives goes past just Sunday services and mid week bible studies.

Ive been asked before if it ever makes me uncomfortable to go to a church that is so family orientated since I attend as a single person who is not part of a family unit, and I tell them that is something I honestly forget most of the time because Commoners are a very loving and friendly group of people! I
don't worry about if I'll have to sit alone on sundays because it never fails that Joy, Susan or more often than not my new best friend Zoe and the Chappell Clan will have a seat waiting for me.

I've been racking my brain trying to come up with "one super amazingly awesome" example of community that I've experienced in the past year and it's been really difficult. Not because there are none , but rather because there are so many. The Laws who have been loving and accepting of me both in church and at their out of state family functions. The Essells who picked me up when I was stranded at a train station last fall even though we barely knew each at the time AND this spring offered me a place in their family Easter portrait since I didn't have my family to take a picture with. My three favorite newly wed couples, the Devlins, the Nichols and the Pablos who could easily have turned our bible study into the young married couple group and kicked me out, but have been nothing but inclusive, kind and generally awesome. And of course there's Zoe Chappell, a little girl who is so full of love that she occasionally explodes like a small grenade of excitement.

Basically I found I don't have "one super amazingly awesome" example, but rather "a million little great ones" .. And I think I like those better because it shows that it wasn't just ONE time that a grand gesture of community and kindness was made towards me, but rather that I've consistently been taken in and shown grace and love by the wonderful people of Commons.

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