The Longest Queue

I may have mentioned once or twice how Thursdays are my favourite day of the week because we get to serve the community through The Gathering's weekly Soup Kitchen.

This is a time of tremendous blessing for us, never mind for those that come to partake of the soup, though we know they are truly blessed too.

However, lately it's been quite sobering seeing the Soup Kitchen growing and seeing how the demographic of those coming for soup is expanding.

Sadly the Soup Kitchen is growing for all the wrong reasons; unemployment is off the scale, the cost of living is leaving less in the pocket for people to be able to share with the poor, and even those with some regular income are finding the offer of a free meal is simply too good to pass up. For the last few weeks the queue for our soup has been growing and last night's was the longest yet. Thankfully our regulars are a patient bunch who know that they will be served and served generously, as well as being afforded respect and dignity by The Gathering.

Having said that, it remains a privilege to be able to share God's blessings with our regulars as well as being able to bless newcomers who we've not seen before. It's also good to be able to tell people why we as a church serve soup so faithfully week after week year after year, it really does blow some folks minds.