(Some of the) reasons why I love my church.

I love my church. Here's a few reasons why:

1. Today, most of the congregation stayed after the service to put together Easter baskets for the food pantry. They do things like this pretty regularly, and almost everyone stays and helps.
2. They like trying things. They're often coming up with new ways for us to spend time together as a church. Here's a fun example: one time I said at a council meeting, "there are some churches that do something called 'beer and hymns' and they sing hymns in a bar, it's kind of fun." Their responses were: "That sounds fun, should we do that in October?" "Ya, what date works?" "I think I know of a bar we could go to" "If we go to this bar, we can get a free quarter barrel." "I can decorate some mugs and we can give them out." "I'll make some centerpieces." I just showed up, everyone planned everything else about it.
3. That last example is also an example of how so many people participate in things. It's a small church, so people know their presence matters, as well as their time/gifts/service/etc. Today we had someone who was sick and not able to come to be the reader or the person who does the powerpoint, and people just offered to fill their spots and everything went just fine.
4. They are warm. They really love their church and each other, and it shows. I met with one of our committees last week, and they genuinely want to reach out to the community and invite people to join us, because they want other people to get to have this kind of belonging.
5. They're faithful. The ways they approach their faith really vary, and it's kind of beautiful to see the different approaches and focuses.
6. They're direct. If they're frustrated, they say it. If they're glad, they say it. If they want me to know something, they say it. Especially after being confused by all the passive (aggressive) stuff for 8 years in Minnesota, I'm really glad to have people just say what they mean. That may be more of a product of Southern Wisconsin, than specifically Bethel, but still, I like it about them.
7. They like singing. 
8. They like praying.
9. They're just fun and funny and like hanging out after the service eating snacks.
10. They love our baby. Last Wednesday, Jesse was out of town, so I had one of our high school students watch Aaron during the Lent service. He was overtired and wanted to go to bed, and was in melt-down city. He heard me leading the service and started soooobbbbing and sobbing and sobbing. He was in the hallway right next to the sanctuary so everyone could hear him. Finally a lady told her to just bring him into the sanctuary with me, and I held him for a lot of the service, and/or he sat on the floor by me taking tissues out of the box and throwing them on the floor and stealing pencils from children and all of the pews. And still people wanted him to be by me and told me to bring him in anytime. Later this week someone pulled me aside and said, "Thank you for sharing Aaron with us. We really love him and we're really glad he's growing up with us." I can't really say how grateful I am that they love him.
11. They don't expect perfection. In fact, they expect we'll all mess up here and there, and they're happy about that.  
12. The last two council presidents have really wanted to be council president (I've only been there for these two), and are thoughtful and good leaders.
13. They're really good at announcement time and sneaking in thank yous and happy birthdays to people.
14. Lots of people serve in really humble and secret ways, probably lots of ways that I don't even know about or realize.
15. They "pass the peace" to everyone. They're the best at the peace.

There's more, but that's all for now.