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Thanksgiving is less than a week away and my family will be celebrating tomorrow. We are excited to have our daughters and son-in-law coming to our home. Our daughter Tessa and her husband Everett will be with his family on Thanksgiving. We are having chicken and Everett is cooking that part of the meal. We are looking forward to Thanksgiving with family as I am sure many of you are as well.

Our Thanksgiving Eve service is Wednesday at 7:00 pm. We have four individuals sharing. In addition, we will be taking our traditional Thanksgiving offering. Let me encourage you to come out and be a part of this special night of praise and worship.

My Thanksgiving message will be shared this Sunday focusing on a phrase that is common in Scripture—give thanks to the Lord. We will consider Colossians 3:12-17 and how we can give thanks to the Lord every day of our lives. We will hear a report from our BDM mission volunteers and look forward to the choir sharing in our 8:15 am service. 

I actually worked on the last message for the year this week that looks back over 2025 and also forward to 2026. As I was preparing the message, I had to stop at various times to pause and pray, thanking God for His blessings in this past year and anticipating the blessings He has for us in 2026. I am looking forward to ending 2025 with an engaging Advent and Christmas season in addition to this week of Thanksgiving.

We had a number of folks here for our Roots night and I am grateful to those who participated in the Advent Bible study. I am well aware that it takes many volunteers each Roots night from kitchen help and clean-up crew to Roots ministry volunteers. I guess you can say I am giving thanks to God today for the many volunteers who help make our Roots nights so special.

Next week is a short week with the Thanksgiving holiday but I will be busy for three days preparing for Thanksgiving Eve service and the upcoming Advent season. The Pine Trail signup is out for the women of the church, and the Oaks Christmas Luncheon is coming quickly in early December. Journey to the Nativity, Christmas Caroling, and Candlelight Communion are all coming in December. And of course it will culminate in our Christmas Eve service on December 24. We have much to be thankful for and much to look forward to in the coming weeks.

My thanks to all who participated in Operation Christmas Child. I noticed early this week that the shoe boxes were taken to the drop off site. What a great ministry and to think how meaningful that shoe box will be to a boy or girl in some other part of the world. Might they know from this simple shoebox of small gifts that there is a God who knows them and loves them and has given them hope through the One born in Bethlehem.

One last Psalm of thanksgiving that spoke to me this week was Psalm 95. The psalm of David begins “Come, let us for sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before Him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.” Wow, what a powerful introduction to a great psalm of thanksgiving. David begins by inviting us to worship the Lord together with thanksgiving and with music and psalm. And that is exactly what we will do this Sunday and next Wednesday evening as we come before Him with thanksgiving.

This column will take next week off and will return in December as we will be well into Advent by then. But first, let’s prepare to worship together with thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you. And remember, it is Friday…but Sunday’s coming.

Pastor Kevin