Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Top Ten Things for Which I Am Thankful This Year

10. I am thankful for my first year serving as Pastor to the good people who make up the First Baptist Church of Fitzgerald, Georgia and for the privilege of living in this community.

9. I am thankful for the members of our church staff, all of whom I inherited and all of whom have proven to be outstandingly cooperative team members.

8. I am thankful for the people who do the necessary obvious out front leadership things at church and for the people who do the necessary anonymous behind the scenes things at church.

7. I am thankful for those public servants who actually regard their public service as service.

6. I am thankful for the Fitzgerald High Purple Hurricanes football team that is by far the best high school football team I have ever had the privilege of watching.

5. I am thankful for the good locally owned and operated restaurants we have in Fitzgerald, especially Floyd’s, Cirillo’s, and Our Daily Bread.

4. I am thankful for Frederick Buechner, Eugene Peterson, Kathleen Norris, Brennan Manning, Barbara Brown Taylor, and other ministers/preachers/writers whose words affect both my heart and my head and cause me to say, “Yes!”

3. I am thankful that our children spent the year doing things they love doing—Sara interning at Disney World and Joshua working on his MFA in Creative Writing.

2. I am thankful for my good wife, who loves me both because and anyway and whose middle initial “J.”, which stands for “Johnson,” to me stands for “Joy.”

1. I am thankful for Jesus, who knows me well and whom I most desperately want to know better.

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