Thank you!

As 2024 draws to a close and our weekly ministries conclude for the year, I want to take a moment to thank everyone who has served across our church throughout the year. There are hundreds and hundreds of people who make Christ Church happen every week - there are people serving as musicians, as growth group leaders, in care teams, connect teams, as purpose drivers, in AV and tech teams, in kids and youth, in everyday English and the list goes on and on. 

Thank you to everyone who has served. Whether for an hour helping set up an event, or for 6-8 hours a week in youth ministry. Thank you to everyone who has served by pouring a cup of tea after church, or making the church site look tidy every Saturday. Thanks to those who have volunteered in the office to cut, collate, and carry. Thanks to those who have joined a serving team for the first time - I hope it has been a joy and a delight to you. 

There are so many who serve and many that go unseen so to all of them and to you, thank you. All that has been done, all your hard work, has been an important contribution to our mission of building wholehearted disciples of Jesus. Without you, a whole lot of things just would not have happened. So, thank you. 

And as you serve, thank you for being an encouragement to me. I often have conversations in which people remind me that it is Jesus’ loving willing service of us that motivates their loving willing service of him and his people. You remind me every week that we don’t serve Jesus so we can become disciples, we serve Jesus because we are disciples. And it is a great blessing and joy to do so. To see lives changed, to see the gospel go forward, and to see people served. There are lots of ways to use your time, some of them excellent, some ridiculous, but there are few better ways to use your time than serving Jesus. And when you do that, it brings me genuine joy.

So, thanks for serving us as you serve Jesus. 

Now speaking of thanks, over the next three Sundays, we are going to hear Pete Oates, Josh Hayward, and Luke Morris preach as they come to the end of their formal ministry with us at Christ Church. We will have a chance to give thanks to them and I hope you take a moment to say farewell and thanks for the way they have served Jesus among us. 

Well, let me finish with this outpouring of thanks to God from Paul that captures much of how I feel for you too. 

Philippians‬ ‭1‬:‭3‬-‭6‬ // I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.

Amen.