At the end of the second service Sunday, while we were singing the last hymn, my wife and Rhett M came up to join me. This is typically the time people come to join the church. Both are already church members, so I knew that wasn’t what was going on. Christi had been off doing children’s church, so for all I know something bad had happened over there. Rhett told me he had something to tell the congregation – that’s all I had to go on.

So, after the hymn, I give Rhett the floor. He announced that it was “Pastor Appreciation Day,” and they’d prepared a big lunch for our family as a way of saying thank you for our ministry. The next hour or so was filled not only with food, but with most everyone coming by and thanking us for our ministry. It was a great event.

It was also a total surprise.

I’d heard of groups like Focus on the Family sponsoring “Clergy Appreciation Month,” but that was in October. So it came from clear out of the blue. It’s nice when the things that come out of the blue are good things.

I was impressed by the creativity and coordination of so many people to pull off the event. Though it’s great to be appreciated, it’s even greater to know I’m part of such a creative group of people. Our church has an awesomely huge mission. Reaching the people of Pittsburg, Camp County, and beyond is clearly beyond our (current) ability. If we’re going to accomplish this mission, it’ll take lots of our people stepping up with creative ministry ideas and “just doing it.” It’ll take people with the courage to step up and do things, even (and especially!) things we’ve never done before.