The Power of Community
Published August 18, 2026
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On Sunday during Round Table Worship, we explored our second core value: Community. This Facebook post written by Tierra Whitlow about her and her daughter's baptism - says it all.
A few months ago, Pastor Abi asked me how I ended up standing in Larry's holy hot tub asking to be baptized. I couldn't think of an answer, other than because Serena. Or at least I couldn’t explain my answer 'because Serena' in a way that made sense other than it felt right .... and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Because honestly I hate not having an answer.
I grew up in chuches that quite often was fire and brimstone in it's messages. I constantly felt that even though you said I was loved, I was going to hell anyway because I couldn't be good in the right way. I was never enough. And while those words may not have been explicitly said, it's the message that little me took from the sermons that always seemed to say do the bad, wear the bad, think the bad, you are bad, bad, bad, BAD.
I was always recieving conflicting messages of what it meant to be good. I'd hear my Sunday school teachers say one thing and watch them do the opposite. Don't you dare call them out on it because that's disrespectful and bad because you do as they say not as they do. And each Sunday with them felt a little more like painting the glass of a lantern in black paint. Like seriously you can't tell me to love everybody but cut off the bad things, and honestly not cut off the people I saw being hateful and doing the bad, and in my heart I left the church. I was 8, maybe 9....
I was physically present at every service I was dragged to but so closed off that I think I read the entire Bible over the course of a billion Sundays cover to cover several times and retained what feels like nothing. I was so removed from the 2 year old who happily ignored her mother as she loudly sang that I love you you love me in the pews as her grandfather sang a gospel song with the choir. It felt like I was watching the world through that black paint. Limited by all the help those but not those, have love for those but not those, forgive them but not them. And that's never who I've been at my core. It felt wrong.
So as soon as I was an adult, and by that I mean actually able to stand my ground when I refused to go with the family to service, because that was well after I was legally an adult (at some point in my 20s), I started refusing to attend. It was around a decade before I willing set foot in a church for a worship service.
It's not that I stopped believing in God. I stopped believing in church. I couldn't force myself to preform something that felt false. That didn't walk the walk. And I felt like I wouldn't find what I needed because I watched church after church burn people left, right, and sideways in the name of God, and it did NOT sit well with me.
Then my Aunt Gina died. The night she passed, I dreamed of her, mom, and a little girl (who I now know was Rini, which is crazy because we hadn't found out her gender yet and thought the baby was a boy like all cousins on her dad's side...) and a tea set we didn't even own until 2 years later on a rug that mom didn't even buy until a year after Gina's death in front of a grey couch with blue grey pillows we didn't own until the middle of Covid . She said God said "Don't wait on that tea date". (Years later, Serena would tell me that she drank this tea (a custom blend tea we bought at the fairy festival) before when she had a tea party with me, Gigi, and an auntie when she was still in heaven...)
And then my mother died. I asked God to take her if this was the time because she was hurting and her heart needed him more than me.
And then I started working at a preschool in a church. And I started seeing people who put their money where their mouth is.
Then my Aunt Gwen died. God only knows how faithful she was, a lot... Girl loved her some church, gifted me my praying doll when I was little... but standing at her graveside, her favorite hymn echoing in my ears, I was reminded of that love I used to feel. It made my heart hurt.
And so I started watching those church people. They weren't preforming. They saw a need and they were addressing it. They got push back and they refused to back down. They refused to stop showing love to everyone. EVERYONE. In whatever way they could.
Reminded me so much of her, Aunt Gwen.
And the message, I got from them was love. We are gonna love you no matter what. Whether you want to be loved, whether you think you can be loved, whether you should be loved... We are going to love you simply because God loves you. You're hungry? We got you. Need diapers? Here. Kid is growing faster than your pocket book? Hey look, I happen to have the next size up. It's your birthday? Let us sing and celebrate you before you go. You're feeling sad today? Walk away with a hug cause baby I love you and there's nothing you can do about it.
They loved me. They loved my child. After meeting us twice. Then they started asking after us. Checking in when they saw me on Tuesdays. Inviting us to volunteer with them. Inviting us to parties, potlucks, picnics. With no expectations that they would ever see us inside the sanctuary. A smile. A hug. Just a friend. Just an ear and sounding board. Just an invite to be part of community however I felt I needed to be included. The best part... that love wasn't just one brand of Church. Everyone was from a different branch. Everyone had the same drive to love though.
When Serena started asking to go help at the Food Pantry and then to go help Ms. Hannah by name, at 2.5 no less, we did. Because the people there, treated us like family. When she asked to go to church so that she could play with Eleanor again or when she fell in love with Mr. David and demanded to go again so that she could see him, we did. Because they showed us we were loved. When Serena was struggling to "do church", they adapted it to make it more age appropriate for the littles by adding in a kids cart. When they asked me if i wanted to help but noticed I was axious at the thought of teaching Sunday school since it had been forever since I had 'done church', they pivoted to put me in charge of the kid's service projects. Because I may have forgotten how to 'do church', but not how to do love.
There was never any you failed because you couldn't meet the expectation. There was only a let us meet you where you are at and walk forward together.
And that spoke to my core. My pump up songs for years has been Take Me Or Leave Me from Rent or Defying Gravity from Wicked. A reminder to myself that the me I am is good enough and changing to be more palatable for someone else just dims my own light. Songs from a time that that hard lesson was crushed into my soul. Handed over like a small flame in the dark by a kindred spirit. (Thanks Bets :))
So because we started going to church because Serena wanted to, we were present for when one of the youth, Drew, preached a sermon. A sermon that spoke to the child inside of me that felt so burned by the church. A sermon that finally helped my brain fully untangle God, the church, and religion in my mind. A sermon that reminded that child in me that the love of God does not subscribe to any rules humanity put on it. God loves all of us without exceptions or limits.
I wished that the love that shaped such a strong young man to love so beautifully that it could reawaken love in others would also shape me. Continue to shape Serena. Cause she loves with that same purity.
So I stood in a holy hot tub because of Serena, because of Drew, because of mom, because of my aunts, because of me... because of love honestly. A holy hot tub of love if you will.
So in a long roundabout way, sorry for the word vomit of my brain ponderings, you finally get a sort of coherent answer. I was standing there because of love.
Read: Colossians 3:12 - 14
12 Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. 13 Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. 14 And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.
Prayer
Gracious God,
knit us together in the love that has carried this whole story. Thank you for the people who show up, who hold light for one another, who make Your grace tangible in hugs, casseroles, service projects, and holy hot tubs. As we go from this devotional, keep shaping us into a community that meets people where they are and walks forward together. Let Your love be the thread that binds us, heals us, and sends us.
Amen.