A MESSAGE FROM REV. LINDSEY ALTVATER CLIFTON: CALLED TO LOVE AND SERVE
Dear ones,
I am incredibly grateful for your care and support following my grandmother’s passing last week. For all the prayers, emails, cards, and hugs. For holding my family close and letting me get teary as the grief comes and goes. Thank you. It means so very much to me.
Losing a loved one often prompts a good deal of 
reflection on life and legacy, both theirs and our own. As I’ve been thinking about Grandma’s life and her impact on mine, I’ve come to a new realization: I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be a pastor if it weren’t for her and her faith.
You see, Grandma came to faith and brought my Papaw along for the ride, and eventually, they’d take their boys (my dad and my uncle) to church when they were young. With my dad’s family, I spent my early childhood in a Southern Baptist church where his uncle (my Grandma’s brother-in-law) was the pastor. While my denominational identity and theological beliefs have evolved a great deal since then, I still point back to those formative years as my very earliest experiences of faith that eventually became a calling to ministry.
Though not all folks are called to ordained ministry, we are all called to the vocation of loving and serving God and following Jesus with the help of the Holy Spirit. I wonder who in your life might have nurtured your faith or planted some spiritual seed that eventually took root? How are you nurturing your own faith now? What of God’s love are you sharing with others?
For each of you and the gifts you share with this community, we give thanks! For those who have helped us grow in faith, we give thanks! For the promise that nothing in life or in death can separate us from the love of God in Jesus Christ, we give thanks!
Deep gratitude, friends.
Lindsey