Laughter, good conversation, encouragement, presents, presence, and love- all good attributes of what I’m thankful for when it comes to family during the Christmas season.

It is no accident, though, that I put family in quotation marks in the title of this post. For me, this Christmas, family goes beyond just those related to you by blood; so much deeper. As I celebrate with my many different “families” this year, I want to spend a moment sharing why I am thankful for each and every one of them (in no particular order):

1. For my beautiful wife and pup, Heather and Maggie. The almost six years we have been together have been great ones and I am thankful for each and every day! For Heather, I am thankful for the ways you show love to me and for what you teach me about finding joy in the smallest of things in life! (Ok, this one might be in order!)

 

2. I’m thankful for my biological family: my mother, brothers and sister, niece and nephew, grandmother, aunts and uncles… all of them. We don’t always see each other or see eye to eye but, at the end of the day, we’re a unique and interesting family. I’m thankful that each of our family get-togethers pick right up where they left off. For my immediate family (mother, brothers and sister), I am truly sad when we are not all able to be together for different reasons at the holidays. I am thankful for the many years we were able to celebrate together and share in our sense of family. Good days or bad, I am thankful for each of them.

3. I’m thankful for the family that marriage has brought me. My in-laws are not the scary kind (a fact for which I am thankful!) and my brother and sister-in-law are pretty awesome too. I am thankful for the holidays that bring us together, for the ways that they show love and grace to my wife and for family reunions where many generations gather together in Pilot, NC and share memories (and good food) with each other! Marriage has blessed me with a pretty great extended family and, for that, I am truly thankful.

4. I am thankful for those of my friends I would label as family. From best friends I’ve known since high school to minister friends to the friends that bring laughter to my life, I am thankful f0r each and every one! For the encouragement, love and grace you each show to me, you will always have a special place in my life and I love each and every one of you.

5. I am thankful for my church families. From Olive Chapel where I began my journey with Christ to the churches that helped me grow as a youth-aged Christian (New Horizons, Fairview, FBC Smithfield), I can never express how much I am thankful for the people there. For those churches that have allowed me to serve with their youth and college students (Bells, Baptist Chapel, Plymouth, Oakmont), THANK YOU for taking a chance on a young minister and letting him grow his call as a staff minister in your congregations. You have shown love to me (and Heather) and have supported me and our ministry to students in powerful ways. For those staff members that I have had the privilege to serve with, I have learned so much from each of you and like to think that I carry a piece of each of your passion for ministry with me everywhere I go.

6. I am thankful for my Campbell Divinity School and Campbell Religion Department family. Staff, professors, and fellow students- I am thankful for each one. I also add my undergraduate family in this one, I would not be the man or minister I am today without the foundation laid as an undergraduate religion major at Campbell! For meeting each of you, I am a better Christian and minister and, for that, I am thankful!

7. For the youth, college students and parents with which I have been blessed to serve. From the small committed group at Bells, to the love-filled close knit group at Baptist Chapel, to the group that kept me on my toes at Plymouth, and to the very unique college students which I now serve at Oakmont/CBFNC, I am thankful for each one of you. I would not consider my life complete if it were not full of the memories I share with each and every one of you. Thank you for those memories and for the things that you have taught me over the years about what it means to have faith in Christ- you have changed me!

8. Last, but certainly not least, I am thankful for the family of that first Christmas. For Mary and Joseph, I am thankful for their willingness and sacrifice as they welcomed the Son of God into the world. For the things they instilled in him as he grew into a man and for the love they taught him to show everyone, I am thankful. I am thankful that those lessons are ones I am now taught to live out in my life through the words of Jesus found in the Gospels.

As I have journeyed through ministry over the past decade, I have learned that family goes beyond just those immediately around you. Certainly, it starts with your biological family members, but true family is so much more than that. Family is a community of people who love you, encourage you and give you the strength to continue on each and every day. “It takes an army,” to really get through life and I certainly have a strong one behind me.

For each and every member of my “family,” thank you for your presence in my life! I would not be where I am without you!

Merry Christmas!