I am grateful for siblings and a mother who live close enough and want to come celebrate the holiday with us. I am grateful for children who want to come and be with us, too. I am grateful for families who will welcome some of our children as if they were their own. I am grateful for the next generation coming into our lives and the hope they bring to our family and to our world. I am grateful!
I am grateful for so many things about being your pastor, as well.
You opened your hearts and lives to my leadership and my role as pastor in your lives long before I walked in the front door of Prairie Church. You have received the words I have preached, been open to my teaching, and supportive of me as I have begun to set the stage for the next season of ministry at EPUMC. I have felt your partnership and encouragement and prayers along the way. And for this I am grateful!
I am grateful for a church that prays for one another and prays for me and my family. Every Sunday when we speak aloud the prayers, there is a deep sense that we are entering into the work which God has already begun, and that our prayers will make a difference.
I am grateful for a church that is always thinking about the least, the lost and the left out. I am grateful that your propensity is to include and welcome and embrace. I cannot wait to see what God will do with our willingness and openness to be the church that includes those who the world finds difficult to include. Imagine the lives changed by such radical hospitality!
I am grateful for your extravagant response to God through your giving to our ministries in 2020. You have been faithful and willing in this area. God is going to do good and beautiful things through the giving you will do that comes from a heart set right before God.
This Thanksgiving I am grateful to be the pastor of Eden Prairie United Methodist Church! Thank you for your trust and partnership and engagement!
Happy Thanksgiving!
Pastor Becky Jo