Pastor Appreciation Month

October has been designated as Pastor Appreciation Month and one of many things I appreciate about my Pastor and boss, Scott, is his passion for the ministry of the universal church. I figured this picture was a fair rebuttal to the grandma photo of me that he posted last week. Through the two plus years that we've served together, a couple of the messages he's preached have really resonated with me and the mini-library is growing. A couple of times a year he feels led to speak on and exegete scripture's definition of the role of the church, its foundation, its purpose and how it applies to us today. Maybe it's just my ears, my observations, but he seems to find a different gear when he discusses the role of the church. Like Scott, I'm passionate about the local church.

Since birth, my life have been intertwined with the local church. My Dad served an Assistant Pastor during the first 3-4 years of my life and for the 22 years following that, my parents served as church planting missionaries. I went to Bible College because I knew I wanted a Biblical education as my foundation before pursuing anything else. One of the courses in my studies devoted an entire semester to understanding what scripture says about the local church and from the first day to the last, the study hit a nerve. Even with all of that background and involvement with the local church, at the end of college, I still had no clue as to where God was going to lead me. Out of the blue, the local church I had attended for the previous two years, offered me an administrative position and I've been serving in the local church ever since.

The thing I appreciate about Pastor Scott's messages on the local church is his ability to capture what I believe "with every fiber of my being" and communicate them in easy to understand terms. And I appreciate his enthusiasm and passion, it gets me fired up to get back to work! I find the messages so inspirational, I listen to them often to remind me of our focus, to rekindle my passion, to lift me up and to keep the main thing, the main thing.

Tomorrow, I'll share my Scott Distler playlist.