Hello Gloria Dei!
On behalf of our Gloria Dei staff, I want to wish you, your family, and your friends a very Happy Thanksgiving next week! We’d love to invite you to Thanksgiving Eve worship with us at 6pm on Wednesday, November 26th, with a pie/dessert social to follow. We would also love a few more desserts for the social, so if you have the gift of baking, consider signing up!
One thing I am thankful for every year is all of you. This congregation is an incredible joy to serve, and YOU are what make it so. I thank God for YOU. We have a lot to be thankful for here at Gloria Dei: our congregation, our volunteers, our staff, our building and grounds, our call to ministry, and so much more. These are gifts to be thankful for. God has blessed us with so much and sometimes I’m simply overwhelmed with gratitude for it all.
The way you contribute to these gifts with your time, attention, energy, passions, and financial resources makes a huge impact in the kingdom of God here in our corner of the world. Your continued contributions mean that every day, more people are more deeply impacted in faith by these gifts. We’re thankful for all the ways that you share what you have with this ministry.
These past few weeks, and again this weekend in worship, we’re exploring God’s “more excellent way” of love as the Apostle Paul speaks of it in 1 Corinthians 12 and 13. Love is often expressed in thanks and giving. Think about it. When you fall deeply in love with someone you want them to know how much you love them. And so, you share with them the gifts that you’ve been given. You share with them your time, your attention, your energy, your resources, and your gratitude. These concrete expressions of love show just how much you love them.
The same is true for our relationship with God. Our concrete expression of love for God is often shared with our time, our attention, our energy, our passions, our resources, and our gratitude. Love is shared in the form of thanks and giving!
As we reach the end of our preaching series “God’s More Excellent Way: The Way of Love,” I want to invite you to share your love for God with your church. We’ve mailed out Estimate of Giving letters to each household. With that letter is a tear off portion for you to share your 2026 plan with us here at Gloria Dei. This Estimate of Giving is simply a concrete plan to share your love with the God who loves you.
We invite you to send your Estimate of Giving information soon. The easiest way is to fill out your information online and let us know your giving plans that way. It’s confidential and convenient.
If you have any questions about our shared ministry or how these Estimates of Giving work, please reach out to me. I’d be glad to have a conversation with you.
Thanks for giving, Gloria Dei! And Happy Thanksgiving!
Pastor Chris
