Saying thank you to those who serve

Today we made visits to the Norwich Fire House and the Norwich Police Department and brought some home made goodies along. We also brought a box of coffee and some doughnuts. We got the opportunity to interact with some of the firemen. It was great. We expressed our appreciation to them and thanked them for the work they did in keeping the city safe and secure. It was a great experience. For some of our members it was the first time they had even been to the firehouse. To top it off some of the kids even got to hop in a firetruck.

We left there and went around the corner to the Police station. We were invited in and we met one of the officers and were able to express our gratitude to him. We asked him to pass it on to the other members of the department and then we left.

Why did we do this? We did it as part of our goal to reach out to our neighborhood with the love of Christ. One of the things we talked about at the recent meeting of the Missional Church task force was the fact that a lot of people just don't trust churches anymore. The general public, people who don't go to church, think either we want something from them or that we are trying to judge or convert them. Every action of ours is suspect.

So we have been careful to focus on giving and sharing without putting out any expectations. We went out with a simple message. We Care. We care about the people in our neighborhood. We care about those who serve our community. We care about people.

Today was kind of nice. It was a chance to simply say thank you to these folks who quietly make this a safer community to live in.

Cal