Posted by jklossner    0 Comment(s)    Add a Comment 
Sep 1 2017

The band "The Roots" that is featured on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon wrote a song in 2008 called Lovely, Love My Family. Here are few words to that tune: “Those quiet moments when not with no one else. I’m mesmerized by all the many good things in my life. I think about the time when I was younger. And the older that I get the more that I feel wiser. With the love of friends and family I get stronger and it carries me on through.”

I was reminded this week how the love of family and friends can carry us through the most difficult times. Like a large tree, those types of relationships have deep roots that make the tree unwaveringly strong. I want love like that. I want relationships like that. I want that kind of family tree. It seems fitting that as we talk on Sunday about being rooted in love that we share with you a special announcement from our Assistant Welcoming Director, Shandon Collins.

Here’s the good news she wants to share with you:

Over the past 4 years, Access has been like a second family to me.  You guys have been there for me in the ups and downs and I'm so happy to have you all as part of my life. On Sunday, September 24th, I will be starting a new chapter and I hope you will be there to be a part of it. My fiancee Shane and I will be getting married and we would love to open the ceremony to the entire congregation! The ceremony will happen right after Access. You can feel free to come as you are! Your presence is the greatest gift you can give us. To learn more details about our wedding and our story, you can go to www.theknot.com/us/shandon-and-shane. You can feel free to RSVP to let us know you will be there or just show up and support. Whether I know you or if I haven't met you yet, all of you are part of my family and you are all welcome :-) Hope to see you there!  
Love, Shandon 

Pretty great, right!? The best kinds of relationships I have seen form in the church are ones where the church becomes a second family. Where people are willing and able to be vulnerable, honest, and real with their questions, struggles, and life circumstances. I’m proud to be part of a community that strives to be rooted in love; a community that “bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” 1 Corinthians 13.

We are so excited to be part of your special day, Shane and Shandon!

Sunday we’ll continue our series “Rooted” talking about how deep the roots of love can go in our lives.

See you Sunday!

-Julie

Posted by rrindfuss    0 Comment(s)    Add a Comment 
Aug 24 2017

It's back-to-school time, and a while back I took a virtual trip back to school when I found some of my old college notebooks and began reading. Some of it I immediately grasped, and some of it came back with a bit of thought, but a disturbingly large amount of the content was not only unfamiliar but incomprehensible. And I'm pretty sure some of the incomprehensible stuff was really important.

Something similar happens with faith. Things we once knew, things that we had mastered to some extent, things that transform life can grow unfamiliar and even seem beyond our grasp if not reviewed periodically. 

Over the course of the next several weeks at Access in a new sermon series titled Rooted, pastor Julie and I will explore the core knowledge and practices at the root of Christianity. In this back-to-school season we'll re-enroll as students of Jesus and re-discover the life-transforming power of being in his presence and learning from him.

I hope you'll join us for this powerful series that begins Sunday with "Rooted in Christ." The Access band will bring us into the presence of God with awesome music, and we'll look at Jesus' teaching about how to stay connected with God and the blessings that result. 

Also make sure to download a copy of this week's Rooted devotional where you'll find stories, information, and activities for adults and children that will help you go deeper with the sermon topic.

See you Sunday!
Rich

Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson

Posted by jklossner    0 Comment(s)    Add a Comment 
Aug 18 2017

This weekend, 180 of our youth will be going on ‘Really Living’ - their annual back-to-school retreat. I went with our youth on this retreat last year and did not expect how full - or how messy - the experience would be. For 48 hours, the youth come together. Through games, worship, small groups, and pudding, they end the summer by celebrating that to really live means life will be messy. This isn’t the sort of mess you clean up; it’s the kind of mess that you lean into and embrace.

When things are messy in our lives, it’s easy to feel frozen or helpless. In our struggle to embrace the messy middle, we live in this tension that polarizes and divides us. When something chaotic, confusing, hurtful or frustrating happens in the world, what can I do? Do I post something eloquent on Facebook? Do I talk about the problems and the problems with our problems? Or do I feel so unable to respond that I simply don’t and I do nothing? Do I hide?

1 Timothy gives us some instruction for what we might do when life is messy: “As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty, or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but rather on God who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.” (1 Tim 6: 17-19)

“Really Living” seems to be defined so clearly in these verses focusing on good works, being generous, and being ready to share. It seems as though these instructions are not a guide for how to get out of the messes in our lives, but instead how to live to the fullest in the middle of the mess. In the middle of the mess, there’s someone who needs you in a hospital room. There’s someone whose whole perspective on the day might change by a free lunch bought for them.  There are children longing for us to teach them. There are things we can do: donating, giving, sorting, loving in action. Author Rachel Naomi Remmon says it this way: “helping and fixing and serving represent three very different ways of viewing the world: When you help, you see life as weak, when you fix you see life as broken, But when you serve, you see life as whole.” Wholeness does not come in the absence of struggle; it comes in the middle of it. It comes when we choose to not have all the answers but to instead meet in the middle and serve.

In just a few short hours I will leave with our youth and ‘really live’ this weekend. By Saturday I will be covered in paint or pudding and sharing smiles with our youth in hopes that we may be an encouragement and confidence for them as they go back to school. Words will never capture fully the work God does in the middle of it all. I can’t wait.

Where is God calling you to really live this weekend - to serve and embrace the mess?

Join us this Sunday as we conclude our series “Building Bridges” by talking about partnership. Working together to build a bridge of justice and compassion is messy work, but it’s worth it. It is what makes us whole.

See you Sunday!

-Julie