One of the highlights of our 60+ active adult community is the Thursday night \u201cMix and Mingle.\u201d It\u2019s dinner with a theme \u2014 a Luau, Western night, or a 50\u2019s Sock Hop (poodle skirts included). But the real draw? The people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The mix is the food and fun. The mingle is where the blessings happen \u2014 hearts connecting, stories shared, asking how a stay-at-home friend is doing and laughter echoing off the walls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, let me be honest. I wasn\u2019t always a mingler. Once upon a time, I was more \u201csit quietly in the corner with my salad\u201d than \u201cpass the chips and share your life story.\u201d But something changed. Or rather, Someone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was the ultimate mingler. I met Him as a child through those flannel board stories in Sunday School \u2014 Jesus with His arms outstretched, always walking toward people, never away. And now, through \u201cThe Chosen,\u201d I\u2019ve seen Him with sandals dusty, eyes tender, arms open. He mingled with the hurting, the doubting, the overlooked. He didn\u2019t just show up \u2014 He engaged.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us.\u201d (John 1:14)
Jesus didn\u2019t hide out in heaven. He moved into the neighborhood.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But nowadays? We retreat. We wave from our cars, skip the conversations that stretch us. Somewhere along the way, we traded community for convenience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLet us not give up meeting together… but encouraging one another.\u201d (Hebrews 10:25)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m thankful to live in a place where mingling is encouraged \u2014 but even more thankful for the reminder that mingling is ministry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A smile across the table or the sidewalk. A gentle \u201cHow are you, really?\u201d These are the seeds of grace we scatter when we choose connection over comfort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because someone is craving what God has put in you and me. And just like Jesus, we don\u2019t get to keep it to ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So let’s grab our name tags and pull up a chair. Let\u2019s mix. Let\u2019s mingle. Let\u2019s minister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus didn\u2019t hide from people \u2014 He mingled. And so should we. Let\u2019s do life together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
One of the highlights of our 60+ active adult community is the Thursday night \u201cMix and Mingle.\u201d It\u2019s dinner with a theme \u2014 a Luau, Western night, or a 50\u2019s Sock Hop (poodle skirts included). But the real draw? The people. The mix is the food and fun. The mingle is where the blessings happen…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[837,1210,1769,2592,1392,7993,32209,40,749,1077,21127,29250,3428,16919,3085,19480],"class_list":["post-22537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-blessings","tag-blog","tag-christian","tag-community","tag-facebook","tag-flannel-board","tag-hearts-connecting","tag-inspiration","tag-jesus","tag-laughter","tag-mingler","tag-mix-and-mingle","tag-retreat","tag-stay-at-home","tag-stories","tag-word-became-flesh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22537"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22539,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22537\/revisions\/22539"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}