I want to take a moment and remark on an event that took place Sunday evening prior to the Vice Presidential Debate. A packed house filled the Moton Museum auditorium for a time of worship, prayer and holy communion together. Town clergy stood together and members from a host of area congregations joined as one in praise of God.

We prayed for the week ahead, for our town, for our country. We asked for God’s hand to hold us, heal us and help us be all that God dreams we can be.

I am so grateful for my fellow area clergy. Their lives and ministries encourage me in my own. I am honored to get to know them as Christian leaders and blessed to cherish them as friends. I was moved to stand together as a group to pray for our community, and to serve communion to those who had gathered. May God continue to knit us closer as neighbors and as brothers and sisters in faith. May our life together as servant-leaders be a witness in our wider community.

There is something profound when we link arms and stand together. Psalm 133:1 remarks, “how good and pleasant it is when family live together in harmony.” This is more than a parent enjoying serenity when siblings aren’t quarreling. There is a sense of having each other’s back, whatever our differences may be, and facing any challenge as a team.

When we place each other in God’s hands, and see each other through the lens of God’s love, our differences actually begin to reflect God’s creativity. We move from “your way or my way” to discovering “God’s way together.”

We value each other, and view each other as gifts from God. I pray our wider community and country can learn from this.

Our faith-story is of a mysterious God whose ways of grace are often overlooked or disregarded. The least-likely son becomes the most respected. The “worst” kind of people become heroes. The builders cast aside a stone that becomes the cornerstone holding everything else together.

A small town becomes birth-place of the One who changes the world. This One is thrown away, only to rise again in divine triumph.

I pray daily to see more of what God is up to. I thank God daily for the eyes of my friends, who seek it with me.

Rev. Michael P. Kendall is Lead Pastor of Farmville United Methodist Church and can be reached at mkendall@farmvilleumc.org or 434-392-4686.