By Sean Egmon

com·mu·ni·ty
kəәˈmyo͞onəәdē/
noun
a feeling of fellowship with others, as a result of sharing common attitudes,
interests, and goals.

Several years ago I joined a group of St. Luke and St. Paul Lutheran Church guys who had a
competition BBQ team. My desire was simple. I wanted to know how to make good, no,
GREAT brisket. While we’ve done pretty well (by the judges standards), we also found
something more. The hundreds of man-hours we put in for each competition taught us a lot
about each other and a lot about community.

Anytime you put a team of people together, interesting dynamics of human behavior
manifest. When that mix is a bunch of Type A guys with a Type B or C thrown in, it really gets
interesting. To be successful as a team you need a “one another” focus.

At first the focus is on “loving one another.” That comes easy enough since you are sharing a
common interest and goal – make GREAT BBQ. After a while, however, that love gets tested
as long hours together leave you tired and stressed. Little things begin to get on your nerves.
At that point it’s important that you learn to “forgive one another” so the little things don’t
become big things and so the fellowship of community isn’t lost.

Forgiveness and love, however, aren’t the only things we found necessary to smoke great
meat. If you ever want to have a chance at being a winning BBQ team you need to “admonish
one another” to grow and improve your skills in BBQ, but even more your journey of following
Jesus. That requires, first, a healthy amount of self-examination before engaging another
teammate.

Finally, the challenge presented by admonishing each other as we grow and improve together
can result in discouragement. So, we have also learned that we need to “encourage one
another.” Encouraging each other puts the fun and enjoyment back into our relationships.
We’ve found that it helps us keep our attitudes more in check and the goal clearer in view.

We are a group of men from St. Luke and St. Paul Lutheran Church. We are men who follow
Jesus. And I’m finding that the themes we are discussing in our “one another” worship series
at St. Luke are the same themes that we’ve had to pay attention to as we smoke meat. These
“one another” themes impact life together on teams, in churches, in communities, or in any
relationship.

Paying attention to “one another” over the years has also taken us far beyond just
competitive smoking. Jesus has led our BBQ team into some great opportunities for service.
We’ve been able to serve the homeless shelter so that those staying there can have a special
meal, a sense of belonging, and loving acceptance that opens doors to talk about Christ.
We’ve had opportunities to serve an appreciation meal for our staff, a farewell party for a
pastor, and a friend’s wedding.

These moments of service create more opportunities for being in community and sharing life
together. Taking a hobby and using that interest to develop a “one another” community that
follows Jesus and serves others together has been a really rewarding experience.
This Thanksgiving the Red White and Que BBQ team is serving our St. Luke Youth by smoking
turkeys as a fundraiser to help offset some of the cost for those youth traveling to New
Orleans for the LCMS National Youth Gathering in 2016.

The youth are going to be part of our BBQ community for this fundraiser as they learn how to
sell, prepare and cook turkeys for any of you who would like to help them reach their goal of
knowing Christ better in a community of believers from all over the county. And they will get
plenty of opportunities to “one another” with our team as they serve you by smoking some
GREAT Thanksgiving turkeys.

We will be taking orders for the next few weeks both online and at each of the sites. Sean
Egmon and Steve Hoover will be smoking the turkeys on Wednesday, Nov. 25, and the turkeys
can be picked up that evening after the worship service at St. Luke – Ann Arbor. Turkeys will
be between 14 and 16 pounds and cost $75. To purchase a turkey, click here.