January

Love 

The Loaves and Fishes team pillars are love, joy, and respect to create a community of love.  That is what Loaves and Fishes is about.  Handing out meals helps with a need we all have, to eat when we are hungry.  The goal is to go deeper than feeding people who are physically hungry.  We all hunger for something more.  We all want to know that we matter, that we count, that we are seen.

What do I mean by seen?  Think about how our culture functions and it is no different than when Jesus walked on this earth.  People with power are seen.  People with money are seen.  People who have fame are seen.  Our society is built on getting, having, wanting what the people that are seen have.  If we study Jesus and his ministry, we can see he tipped what people saw as important upside down.  As Jesus stated in Matthew 20:16 – So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

As we feed people our core volunteers show the outside volunteer group that they matter and are loved.  The core group has created a community of their own where they show love to one another.  We can and do take that love and share it with the people who drive or walk up for a meal.  We look to follow Jesus’ command from John 13:34 – “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  Notice Jesus didn’t ask or suggest that we love one another has he has loved us he commands us. Command means to give an authoritative order.  If we are followers of Jesus, Christians, then this is something we must do.