Pastor Appreciation

"Let the elders who rule well be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching." — 1 Timothy 5:17

October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and today Centerbrook took time to do exactly what that verse says — honor the shepherds God has given this church. We are blessed with three.

Rob carries the gospel far beyond these walls, and Centerbrook gets to be part of that work through him. When he's home, he doesn't just report on the field — he feeds us, with messages like "Lessons from David" and "Focused: The If/Then Promises of God." Honoring Rob reminds us that the mission field starts at our door, but it doesn't end there.

Sister Kim serves everywhere she is needed. She sits on our leadership team, and when she preaches, she preaches from the storm herself — her message "The C's of Storms" came from a place of having lived it. She is the hands of this church's compassion, the one organizing our Operation Christmas Child Pack & Pray Party so children across the world receive a Christmas box with the gospel inside it. Much of what she does is unseen — the organizing, the preparing, the caring — and this church runs on it.

Pastor Joe feeds this church week after week. His sermons fill our library, and he still writes a follow-up for us after Sunday — "From the Pen of Pastor Joe" — so the message keeps working on us all week long. Right now he is leading us through the Revite series, calling this church back to prayer and to expecting God to move. He leads with a shepherd's heart: he knows this flock by name, and he shows up for people, not just pulpits.

A pastor's work is mostly invisible — the prayers nobody hears, the visits nobody sees, the hours of study behind a Sunday sermon. Today we made the invisible visible. Rob, Kim, and Pastor Joe: we see it, and we are grateful.