November 20, 2000

TOGETHER:
God provides many reasons to be thankful this year
___"Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
___Thanksgiving season always comes at just the right time for me. If I am joyful, I can rejoice gratefully in the Lord. If circumstances are difficult and sadness tugs at my heart and fills my eyes with tears, I can still find many things for which to be thankful.
___Here is my thanksgiving list:

CHARLES WADE Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

___I am thankful for Texas Baptists and the invitation you gave to me a year ago to come serve with you as executive director. I started the year as executive director-elect before assuming my current role Feb. 1.
___I am grateful to Bill Pinson for the passionate and careful stewardship he brought to this task over the last 17 years. He has been wonderfully encouraging and helpful to me.
___I am grateful for the hard-working men and women who serve with me on the Executive Board staff. They are dedicated, knowledgeable, creative and fully committed to Christ and to the local churches.
___I am thankful for the leaders of our churches who have been supportive of our mission and ministry efforts and willing to do whatever they could to help me learn the ropes.
___As we all are aware, we are going through some difficult times just now. Not every pastor or church member agrees with me or with the decisions made by our convention. But in the midst of this, I rejoice because God is working out his purposes in us.
___I am thankful for those who disagree but continue to pray for our convention and for me.
___I am even thankful for this time in our Baptist life.
___While it is painful and confusing, I see God helping Texas Baptists to renew our interest in what the Cooperative Program is all about and the good it makes possible in Texas and around the world. I see also a determination to protect our Baptist way of doing things--not by coercion or creed but by cooperation and a common loyalty to Christ and the Great Commission.
___As I sit down with my family and friends over the Thanksgiving weekend, I also will give thanks for these gracious blessings--my dear family, Rosemary, our four children, their spouses and eight precious grandchildren. I give thanks for this country and the freedoms and responsibilities that belong to us. I will pray for all our national and state leaders. I am thankful for our church, which continues to love and pray for us as they provide for us a spiritual home that anchors us in our work with all the Texas Baptist churches.
___Most of all, I will give thanks on Thanksgiving day, as I do every day, that Jesus saved me as a little boy and gave me the deep confidence that I was loved and known to him.
___For his calling in my life and for the glorious gospel of God that has enabled me to tell good news to hurting people for all these years, I give thanks.
___For the amazing power of the word of God, when read, preached or lived to bring life to those who have been spiritually dead, I give thanks.
___Thanks be to God, for his wonderful power in our lives.
___We are loved.
___

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