Twice a month I serve a small rural congregation. Average Sunday attendance is around 12 or so, but this morning we had unexpected largesse with a congregation of 23. Is this one of those struggling congregations just barely hanging on in a country town with high unemployment and a dim future? Not likely! Over coffee and donuts after the service, the congregation gathered to acknowledge the over abundance of blessings that are theirs. Each one took an envelop in which to make personal donations earmarked for particular needs in the community, hundreds of dollars from their outreach fund were dedicated to other needs here and abroad, two parishioners took on responsibility for outfitting the needs to two impoverished children, $500 from a discretionary fund was given to the local food bank, and a couple of hundred more was dedicated to the family of a minister whom they did not know, in another town, and from another denomination, whose house had burned down. All this from a congregation that cannot afford a full-time pastor and worships in a tiny little hundred-year-old building in need of repair. Driving up there twice a month to worship with them is truly one of the greatest joys of my ministry.