October 2024
Dear Friends:
Through the month of October, together, we are looking at the theme of Abundance and I have seen, heard, witnessed, and experienced the Lord’s abundance in so many ways recently as we minister together at and through Plum Creek Presbyterian Church.
The abundant blessing of our Commissioning Service has been a highlight in our recent life together! Again, I offer my sincere gratitude of all the ways you made that event a celebration day for us all! Thank you for your abundant hospitality to all of our members, friends, and guests that joined us for that celebration!
The abundant blessing of partnerships we have formed and are forming with A One Room School House, the local AA chapter, the Chamber of Commerce, and more. May we continue to reach beyond our walls.
The abundant blessings of your tithes and offerings – financial, time, talent, and prayer. Your faithful and continued support of the ministries of Plum Creek by giving in these ways enables us to witness to the Good News of Jesus Christ. Your volunteering in ministries allows us to form Christian relationships with one another, our children and families, and our community. By saying yes to using your Spirit-given gifts and abilities – you are living into our call to faithfully use what God has given us for the building of the kingdom. If you haven’t had an opportunity to take one or more of the Spiritual Gift Inventories, please do so at the links below. Two are online surveys and one can be printed out and completed on paper.
https://spiritualgiftsassessment.org/ or https://gifts.churchgrowth.org/spiritual-gifts-survey/
The abundant blessing of a caring community of faith is evident in the way we care for each other and those who we love with our continued prayer support to our prayer concerns in worship and on our prayer chain. It is evident in the way we support each other through our life challenges and in the way that we welcome and engage with visitors and our community neighbors.
The abundant blessing of children and youth! We are blessed with children and grandchildren that we not only welcome into the faith (I thank the church for the support of the baptism of my granddaughters in September), but we continue to provide opportunities to nurture them and to share the faith with them so that they too, may come to know the lasting foundation that faith in Jesus Christ will offer them throughout their entire life. And WE are abundantly blessed when we engage in these ministries with them. We learn new perspectives, we hear in new ways and we witness the hope of the future.
The abundant blessing of adversity. That may seem a strange one and I do not wish adversity on anyone… but adversity is transformational. While I don’t believe God intentionally wants to give us awful trials and suffering, we live in a world where God gave us free will. Free will often results in life situations that are far removed from the peace-filled life God intends for us. BUT…I do believe that God can and does work through EVERYTHING for our good. Transformational journeys through tough times help us to gain new perspectives and often are used by God to develop new tools and characteristics that serve us into the future. And through our self work and our work together in trying times, we can find a new peace that is based on God’s grace and faithfulness.
The blessing of the abundant ways God is present each and every day ---if we take time to notice.
My wish for us this month is that we each keep a running list of our abundant blessings this month. I challenge us to take an everyday cup from your cupboard and each day, place a slip of paper for each blessing you received that day. I wonder how full our cup would be at the end of the month! I am going to try it – how about you?
17 Everything good comes from God. Every perfect gift is from him. These good gifts come down from the Father who made all the lights in the sky. But God never changes like the shadows from those lights. He is always the same. James 1:17
Abundant October Blessings!
Pastor Carolyn
