Love is cultivated through relationships. Similarly, community is cultivated through connection and grace. In this month filled with big dates and observances, there is ample opportunity to gather as God’s people together around a table for a meal and conversation, as well as in worship. These opportunities can undergird the cultivating of community through sharing gratitude with and for God and one another and embodying that gratitude through generosity as signs of God’s abundant and generous love for us. These opportunities also provide an opportunity to have some deep and honest conversations with ourselves and others. Through such conversations, relationships and community grow and are cultivated.
Questions for Reflection:
- In what ways have you seen and experienced God cultivating community around you and for you?
- How might God be inviting you to cultivate community?
- What are two or three ways that you will cultivate community this year?
Suggested Hymns and Songs:
Bind Us Together (WOV 749)
Blest Be the Tie that Binds (ELW 656 & LBW 370)
Go To the World (ACS 991)
What a Fellowship, What a Joy Divine (ELW 774 & WOV 780)
Other Theme Considerations and Potential Connections:
- “Cultivating Community” builds on the prior months’ themes. Given all of the things on the calendar this month, how might this month provide a chance to cultivate community together as God’s people?
- The November calendar includes: All Saints Sunday, Election Day (and the results from election day), Christ the King Sunday, Thanksgiving, National American Indian Heritage Month, and the usual end of the harvest season. In all of this, how might we as God’s people create community that is grounded in the community we are called into and are a part of through the Body of Christ together?