Thank you for your partnership in ministry over the years. I am amazed at how many people have given their time, food, and money to support the work of God in East Village. We at Living Water would not be able to function without the generosity and help of our wider faith family, and we are very grateful for you. 

Even as a very young church, we at Living Water have found ourselves with a three year old tradition of serving an open community meal at Thanksgiving. Many of you have cooked and brought food to share in the past, and as a result, we have served somewhere between 3-400 people at each of the last three Thanksgivings despite the fact that we don’t have a kitchen and can only seat about 100 people at a time in the building! It has been a beautifully chaotic event, and a true blessing to both our church and the wider community. 

As we have evaluated the need in the community and the most significant gifts we have to offer in our church, we have decided to mix things up a bit this year.  With so much turkey, potatoes, stuffing, and pie being served on and around Thanksgiving Day in the downtown area, we are instead planning to host a breakfast on Thanksgiving Morning from 8-10am. We would love to have your help in providing food again, but instead of traditional Thanksgiving fixings, we are looking for breakfast food – eggs, sausage, bacon, French toast, etc… Here you can find a google doc to sign up to volunteer to help serve the meal, and to bring particular breakfast food to share with the larger community. 
This new plan will allow us to lean into our true strength and calling in the community to provide an actual family Thanksgiving Dinner in homes to the many people in our church who have nowhere to go for the holiday. We already have Living Water folks signing up for meals in homes of congregants on Thanksgiving afternoon/evening, where they will enjoy the love of an intimate church family feast rather than a chaotic meal served to hundreds at a time. If you are really itching to share some traditional Thanksgiving fixings, we’d love some help in making dishes for these two in-home meals. Please email me directly, and we can find the best way to contribute to those festivities.  
Lastly, you are also always welcome to contribute to the work of our church financially here. We are very grateful for help keeping the doors open and the lights on as we continue to become a community of disciples with an orientation toward radical love and hospitality to all people, especially those who find themselves otherwise unwelcome in most places in this world. This is a daily task for us, and we are grateful for any gift that might make it easier for us to continue this good work that Christ has given us to do.  

We look forward to partnering with our wider church family again this Thanksgiving. Thank you in advance for once again sharing the love that God has given you with us and the East Village community this year. 

Grace and peace, 
Pastor Chris (619) 942-3692
livingwaternazarene.com