Dear Church Family,
I love being your pastor! It seems every week in January reminded me of this. Two Sundays in January were a little lower in attendance due to weather, but every Sunday in January was fun for me. We worshiped together. We laughed together. I prayed with many of you. I cried with some of you. We lived life and we loved God. It was everything I could hope for as a pastor.
I know I’m not a perfect pastor. There is no perfect pastor. I have room to grow. Yet you are patient with me. You forgive me when I don’t get everything right. Not only that, but you also love my family. When we had to spend the night in Omaha after Eden’s surgery did not go as expected, it almost felt like a fight to see who would get to help Rachel and me by keeping our boys overnight. We even had a solution given to us to take care of our trash! Some of you gave us funds for fuel and hotel. All of you were praying. You were our family in our hour of need and I just want to say, “Thank you.”
This year I will celebrate a couple of fun milestones. I will celebrate 25 years of marriage in June and 10 years at Grace in October. Just as the success of my marriage pretty much rests on Rachel’s constant graciousness to me (Ya’ll know this is true!), my continued ministry here is due to your grace as well (I know this is true!).
Thanks for helping me grow. Thanks for growing with me. I can’t wait to see what God is going to do through us next!
So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Ephesians 2:19-22
Pastor Daniel