THANK YOU!!

Did you know October is Ministers’ Appreciation Month? I hope you have. I pray that someone who knows that you are a minister has expressed appreciation to you. Even if they haven’t, I’m sure many are thankful for the work you do among them and for the Lord. 

If there is a chance that no one has, please allow me to be the first to say “Thank You.” Those two words seem so small, so inadequate, and so underwhelming, when in reality, they are massive.

A survey some time ago published by the University of Georgia’s College of Family and Consumer Sciences found that the words “Thank You” are key to improving couples’ marriages. They are powerful words. So, Thank You.

1. Thank you for devoting your lives to God and His people!

2. Thank you for working hard, often harder than anyone realizes!

3. Thank you for preaching life-giving and life-changing messages!

4. Thank you for believing the message you preach is worth giving your lives to!

5. Thank you for continuing to preach even when preaching is difficult!

6. Thank you for standing for truth in a world that increasingly rejects truth!

7. Thank you for spending your lives trying to help people get to heaven!

8. Thank you for understanding that what you do matters for eternity!

9. Thank you for loving people, even when people are difficult to love!

10. Thank you for being there for people during the best and worst moments of life!

11. Thank you for sitting beside hospital beds, standing beside graves, and kneeling beside broken hearts!

12. Thank you for celebrating with those who rejoice and weeping with those who weep!

13. Thank you for caring about people who sometimes don’t seem to care about you!

14. Thank you for seeing potential in people that others have given up on!

15. Thank you for helping people find their way back to God!

16. Thank you for loving the church, even when the church breaks your heart!

17. Thank you for making sacrifices that most people will never know about!

18. Thank you for the sacrifices your families make alongside you!

19. Thank you for carrying burdens you cannot share with anyone else!

20. Thank you for continuing to serve while dealing with your own struggles, disappointments, and grief!

21. Thank you for giving your time to others when you desperately need time for yourselves!

22. Thank you for so often putting others' needs ahead of your own!

23. Thank you for serving faithfully without expecting recognition or applause!

24. Thank you for sometimes paying a personal price for preaching the truth!

25. Thank you for not giving up, even when you get discouraged!

26. Thank you for continuing to show up, even when your hearts are heavy!

27. Thank you for continuing to try to become better servants of God, even when you make mistakes!

28. Thank you for continuing to believe in the church when others have lost hope!

29. Thank you for being willing to have difficult conversations that others would rather avoid!

30. Thank you for refusing to measure success only by numbers, buildings, or budgets!

31. Thank you for continuing to plant and water, trusting God to give the increase!

32. Thank you for always being faithful, even though many of you will never be famous!

33. Thank you for teaching children who may one day become faithful Christians, elders, missionaries, and preachers!

34. Thank you for strengthening marriages, encouraging parents, and helping families stay together!

35. Thank you for helping people face death with hope!

36. Thank you for influencing lives you may never know you have touched!

37. Thank you for leaving a spiritual legacy that will outlive you!

38. Thank you for helping make churches stronger, communities better, and families healthier!

39. Thank you for encouraging other preachers to keep going!

40. Thank you for making the world a better place through your life, your work, and your preaching!

41. Thank you for continuing to show up!
    You show up when you’re tired. You show up when you’re discouraged. You show up when someone has criticized you. You show up when you’re struggling with problems in your own families.

42. Thank you for carrying burdens nobody knows about!
    You know about troubled marriages, struggling homes, and so many other sad realities.

43. Thank you for loving people who don’t always love you back!
    You preach to people who criticize your preaching. You visit people who rarely thank you. You pray for people who sometimes mistreat you.

44. Thank you for making an eternal difference!
    Many of you will never write a book, speak at a major lectureship, or preach to a large congregation. But you will baptize people into Christ, restore the fallen, comfort the grieving, strengthen marriages, and help Christians remain faithful.

45. Thank you for not quitting!
    You face disappointments, criticism, loneliness, financial struggles, and sometimes opposition. Some days you wonder whether your work is making any difference. But you get up the next morning and continue serving.

THANK YOU! THANK YOU!! THANK YOU!!!