October 16, 2025

Dear Beloved in Christ,

Grace and Peace to you in the name of the one who brings forth the harvest and invites us to be co-laborers in sowing God’s abundant love.

This past month, the appointive cabinet had the opportunity to hold our monthly meeting at the United Methodist Church in Wall, SD. While I was there, I happened to thumb through an old hymnal that was in our meeting room and discovered a hymn I was not familiar with, “God, Whose Farm is All Creation.” It begins with these words:

“God, whose farm is all creation, take the gratitude we give;
take the finest of our harvest, crops we grow that we may live.”

Each year, Thanksgiving invites us to pause, to notice God’s abundant provision, and to respond with hearts of gratitude and generosity. We are reminded that all we have—the resources we steward, the relationships we care for, the talents we engage, even the very breath in our body—is a gift from our Creator who tends the vast “farm of all creation.”

This year, as we reflect on the many blessings that sustain us, I invite you to consider how we might extend that blessing to our neighbors through the 2025 Thanksgiving Offering.

Across North and South Dakota, families are struggling to meet their most basic needs. Many are uncertain where their next meal will come from, how they will afford their heating bill this winter, or how to pay for critical medical care.

When we pray, “Take our plowing, seeding, reaping, hopes and fears of sun and rain,” we are offering to God not just the fruit of our labor but our compassion for those whose harvests have been lean. We are praying that God would use our gifts—our time, our energy, our resources—to cultivate hope where scarcity has taken root.

As part of this year’s Thanksgiving Offering, I encourage you and your congregation to give generously and serve faithfully. Consider partnering with local organizations in your community that address food insecurity, provide energy assistance, offer healthcare support, or meet other basic human needs. These are tangible expressions of God’s love—ways of tending all of God’s creation together.

As you do so, we invite you to share those examples and stories with us through this form and your social media platforms so we can amplify our collective witness. Tag the Dakotas Conference of The United Methodist Church on Facebook or Instagram by adding the hashtag #DKUMCHarvestOfGratitude. Together, our collective witness will tell a powerful story of love in action across the Dakotas.

If you would like to participate in our shared, connectional effort, you can also give through the Dakotas Conference Thanksgiving Offering. This year, your gifts will support Feeding South Dakota and the Great Plains Food Bank, vital ministries that provide nourishment to thousands of our neighbors across the Dakotas. You may share your gifts online through the Dakotas Conference website or by mail (1331 W. University Ave., P.O. Box 460, Mitchell, SD 57301).

Information about the 2025 Thanksgiving Offering and resources to help promote this opportunity are linked below. Please invite the members and friends of your congregation to experience the power of our United Methodist connection through this expression of ministry and generosity. Together, we can embody Christ’s command to “go and do likewise”—to see, serve, and love our neighbors as ourselves.

In the words of the hymn’s final verse:

“All our labor, all our watching, all our calendar of care,
in these crops of your creation, take, O God: they are our prayer.”

May your gratitude this Thanksgiving overflow into acts of grace. May your table be full, your hearts be open, and your offering—of time, treasure, and love—become a prayer that ripens into God’s abundance for all.

With thanksgiving and hope,

Bishop Lanette Plambeck  

Resident Bishop 

Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area  

The United Methodist Church 

Resources: 
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