Dear First Baptist Church,
Thank you for honoring me this past Sunday as your pastor. I am humbled by your most-generous gifts, and I appreciate the kindness you showed my family as partners with me in ministry.
Thank you for acknowledging my service during Pastor Appreciation Month. Your presentation on Sunday, as well as your cards and heartfelt words, are a blessing to me. Your presence with me on the path these last ten years has encouraged and sustained me through seasons of joy and trial. Thank you for being my family of faith.
My family has made a top-ten (okay, maybe top-eleven) list of things we love about our church. Here they are:
Rebecca: One of the things I love about our church is the intergenerational nature of our faith community. When I look around the sanctuary on Sunday mornings as I lead the Song of Praise, I see a room full of people who care deeply about one another. You are so thoughtful in so many ways-- bringing us newspaper clippings when our kids are featured in the newspaper, dropping off hand-me-down clothes, and sending sweet texts to check on us if we're not feeling well.
Ellen: I love how caring and supportive the church family is.
Jeff: I love how our church is gracious to a fault and gives one another the benefit of the doubt.
Rebecca: Another thing I love about our church is that it's okay to be new! When visitors show up, you quickly welcome and get to know them. You learn our guests' names, invite them to participate in the church's life, and work to find points of connection. I'm grateful we are a church that always makes room at the table for one more.
Zeb: One thing I love about our church is that people are very welcoming every Sunday morning. Everyone goes out of their way to greet others with warm smiles and kind words.
Jeff: I've never been associated with a more hospitable church fellowship. I love how our church members show that they care by tending to people's appetites. When a meal is needed, our church family whips up the most-amazing food offerings (oh, the desserts).
Rebecca: I am deeply grateful that we're a church that recognizes and affirms that God calls both women and men to lead and serve in ministry. Thank you for encouraging and supporting my sense of calling to serve in the region's nonprofit ministry.
Ellen: Another thing I love about church family is their commitment to serving others.
Jeff: I love how our church is willing to take faithful risks and try new ways of serving others and being church. This adventurous spirit is inspirational and contagious. When people say, "We've never done it this way before," it's meant as a compliment, not a complaint.
Zeb: I love that the church supports one another through the good times and the hard times.
Jeff: In a time when any number of issues and challenges are pulling churches apart, I love how our church has not let our differences dominate and overpower our relationships as brothers and sisters in Christ.
Thank you, First Baptist Church, for all the ways you are Christ Jesus to my family and one another.
Jeff