Thoughts from your Regional Minister
By Tom Stanley, Co Regional Minister & President
Published in October 2022 Kansas Messenger
October is Pastor’s Appreciation Month. I am very grateful to all who have answered God’s call to serve in the congregational setting, the chaplaincy, regional ministry, general church units, and all the non-traditional settings where pastors serve. Thank you for your service, and thank you for your gifts, time, and talents.
I have seen many of our congregations preparing to celebrate pastor appreciation month in many different forms, and I am grateful! Thank you goes a long way to relieving the stress of a hard week, it goes a long way into making a day better, and it just feels good! Study after study reminds us of the benefit of being kind and saying thank you. Please remember to say thank you to your pastor!
I am beginning a new sermon on what life more abundant means. Jesus came, as He said in John 10:10, that we might have life more abundantly. But what does that mean? This means that Jesus came to teach us how to better love, tend and care for each other. This means that Jesus came to teach us better how to love God with everything we are today.
If we do these things, we will live a more abundant life! Life more abundantly means fully living into Jesus’s commandments to love God with all you are and love your neighbors as yourselves. More on this later!