A long overdue thanks

From today's Launch Blast:

I found myself reading John 5 this morning.  When I read, I try to pay attention to any phrase that triggers any kind of reaction in me.  Surprise, frustration, intrigue, excitement, doubt, any such response I take as a possible prompt from God.  Then I slow down and focus on that verse.

This morning I was grabbed by this words of Jesus:

“Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes, and look on the fields, that they are white for harvest.  Already he who reaps is receiving wages, and is gathering fruit for life eternal; that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.  For in this case the saying is true, ‘One sows, and another reaps.’  I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Let me just say that I am HUGELY excited about the conversations we are having about the future of our church.  I can hardly keep it in, I’m so excited.  This morning, though, I realized how much of a debt of gratitude I owe the people who have paved the way for those possibilities.  I’m slightly embarrassed at the degree to which I’ve forgotten a critical point.  God used generations of people (from long before I was even a twinkle in my mother’s eye) to prepare this church for each new step of its journey.  And we build our future on the prayer and hard work of those before us.

And today I want to say THANK YOU!!!!

Thank you to the past spiritual leaders of our church.  Thanks to people like Mal Nygren and Dale Tutje for laying such a solid faith foundation deep in the hearts of our congregation.  Thanks to session members who spent many long nights wrestling with hard challenges and big ideas, trying to do one thing - discern God’s leading.  Thanks to committees and task forces who, time and time again, prayed and wondered and dreamed about God’s future.  Thanks to you, the members of this congregation, who stuck with us through tough times and uncertainies.  Thanks to those of you with spiritual vision who dared to dream of new possibilities.  Thanks to those with deep faith - who trusted that God would provide and protect us, even as we ventured into new places.  Thanks to the countless prayer warriors who covered our every step in petition to God; yours was probably the most important piece of what brought us to this point.  

As we move forward, I am praying that we would be blessed by God as people of the harvest.  I pray that we see God move mightily, in and through us, to accomplish his redemptive work in the lives of those around us.  And today I pray that we remember with gratitude those before us who tilled the fields and sowed the seed.  Our harvest is also your harvest.  

Thanks!