Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

The reading today title Built Together to Serve was written by Kenneth Peterson.

In rural Amish culture, the building of a barn is a social event.

It would take months for a single farmer in his family to construct a barn,

but the Amish, doing it together, make quick work of it.

Lumber is stocked ahead of time, tools are prepped.

On the designated day, the entire Amish community gathers early, divvies up tasks, and together

pitches in to raise a barn, sometimes in a single day.

This is a good picture of God's vision for the church and our role in it.

The Bible says in 1st Corinthians chapter 12, all of you together are Christ's body,

and each of you is a part of it. God has equipped each of us differently and divvied up tasks

in which we do our own special work as part of a body fit together perfectly. In community, we're encouraged to carry each other's

burdens. Yet too often we go it alone. We keep our needs to ourselves wanting control of our circumstance.

Or, we fail to reach out and help shoulder the weight of someone else's need. But God longs for us to connect with others. He knows

beautiful things happen when we ask for others' help and pray for others' needs. Only by

depending on one another can we experience what God has for us and accomplish his amazing plan

for our lives, like building a barn in a day.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is taken from 1st Corinthians,

chapter 12, verses 18 through 30. But in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body. The eye cannot say to the hand, I don't need you. And the head cannot say to the feet,

I don't need you. On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable.

And the parts that we think are less honorable, we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable

are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God

...