Good morning. As a lot of you know, I’m Kate Gibbs. My husband Jordan is back there, and I have two children, Nora and Jonah. Two weeks ago, Casey Farmer was in here, and she gave a great stewardship talk where she said at the end that St. Matthew needs you despite what you may think; they need you to step up. And so, I went in and took advantage of that and ran over to me and was like, hey, I need you to do the stewardship talk in two weeks. And I was like, great. So, here I am doing what he asked me to do.

But Brian asked me to talk about why I teach. And you would think as a teacher that that would be really easy for me, but I actually struggled a lot with thinking about my wife and this. I grew up in the McComb area in southwest Mississippi, and I went to the Mediator Redeemer Episcopal Church. If you went to that church in the early 1990s, you were going to be taught Sunday School by Ms. Ethel Farna. And she was going to have little felt figures that she painstakingly cut out and put eyeballs and eyebrows and everything on and create an elaborate setting out of felt. And then she was going to tell you the Bible story on a big felt board. And you could be certain that at the end of Sunday School that you were going to be given a butter cookie that could slide onto your finger and that you would get to drink juice out of a plastic mug that she made for you with your name on it hand-painted and a picture of your choice. And I guess I picked a duck. And if you went to that church, 30 years later, the ladies of that church would finally decide that you were responsible enough to take ownership of the cup for yourself. If you went to that church, it was guaranteed that at some point you were going to be chased out of the kitchen by Miss Virginia and Miss Kathy and Miss Lynn at a potluck. You were going to hear Jack Seale get up in October and give you a stewardship talk just like I’m doing, except for that he was not afraid to talk about the money. I am, so I will not be talking about that.

My point of all of that is that my church knew me really well, and I knew my church really well growing up. They were there for every high and low, for me and for my family, and they still are today. So when Jordan and I got married, it was really important to both of us that we find a home church. And not just one that we attended, but one that we were really plugged into. And so we looked in Hattiesburg, and then we moved to Birmingham, and we looked in Birmingham, and we went to churches that had excellent sermons, and we went to churches that had fantastic ministries, but we always just felt like there was a little bit lacking, that we were always just looking for more. And I kind of had just resigned myself, that I had grown up in the unicorn of churches, and that there wasn’t going to be a church like mine, and that as an adult, I was just going to have to settle for something that was sub-par.

In 2015, Jordan and I moved to the area. We unpacked the U-Haul on a Friday, and got invited to this church, and on Sunday morning we dug in our church box, and we came to church that morning. And we got plugged into a Sunday school class really quickly, so quickly that about two months later, Brian, see this is a pattern with you, came and was like, “Hey, we could use you to teach youth Sunday school.” And so we got plugged in with that. Jordan joined the praise team and started playing for Intersection. And for the first time I started thinking, “Okay, maybe this is going to be a long-term option for us. Maybe this is going to be a home church for us.”

Over the years, the serving changed. We got more and more plugged in. I started helping with the kids’ ministry more. Tim foolishly asked me to help with the children’s choir. We started doing Christ’s Cupboard and Birthday Gifts of Christ and just trying our hands in different places. I guess I served enough that they eventually decided to start paying me for it because I started as the director of children’s ministry a few years ago and then just stopped at this summer.

And we were really falling in love with our church. Last fall, y’all know that, most of you know, that Jordan was diagnosed with brain cancer. And it was during that season that I learned just how important this church had become to us. It was members of this church that I called the morning that Jordan had a seizure, and I was hours away and said, “Go pick up my kids.” And it was members of this church who went to our house and got Jordan and drove him to the hospital. It was members of St. Matthews that were waiting in the waiting room when I got there to let me know how my husband was. It was members of this church that prayed for us in those early days when we didn’t know what was going on, and we were waiting to hear. It was members of this church that texted me nonstop. It was the pastor of St. Matthews that was there on a Tuesday morning holding our hands, distracting us mostly, but praying with us on one of the scariest days of our life. It was members of this church that pulled strings for us when we were in the hospital to make sure that we received the best medical care that we could get and that still check on us monthly. It was members of this church who worked in the hospital and came by just to say hi and how we were doing. It was members of St. Matthews that mowed my grass for months, making it look better than it’s ever looked and if you’ll please come back. It was the people of St. Matthews who brought us food for months to the point that I finally had to say enough. There are three Costco-sized Caesar salads in my fridge. I can’t eat another bite.

When I tell you it was overwhelming, the amount of love that we had in that moment, the people of St. Matthews showed us what it looks like to be the hands and feet of Christ. Your acts of service in those months sustained our family. You taught us what it looks like to be followers of Christ, and you continue to show us that today. While I haven’t seen any thought boards, my children are being formed by you. Jonah squeals, “My teacher!” every time he sees one of his. I hear your voices when Nora’s in the back seat of the car singing the songs that she learned on Wednesday Night Live. You show me every Wednesday when I get to go to the parlor for an hour and just vilt about how hard it is to be a mom sometimes. You show me every Sunday with your warm smiles, your laughter, and your joy in seeing each other. We never really know what our gifts of time and service, big or small, may mean to someone. Our decisions may be what helps someone find a church home, find God, find a community, or just find a little light in the darkness. So Brian asked me to give a talk about why I teach, but it is so much easier to talk about what I’ve learned from all of y’all.