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Dec
08

Grinchmas Giving

Posted by jklossner    0 Comment(s)    Add a Comment  comment-icon.png

This year, I might have a slight preference for the Grinch over Santa. The idea of someone coming to my house and taking all the stuff that I didn’t need in the first place would save me a lot of trouble when I get to spring cleaning. I have been the thinking the past fews weeks of what it might look like to buy presents for my family and friends a little differently this year.

 

What it would like if I bought experiences rather than stuff? Or if I had them unwrap presents that would go to others in need? Would they revolt? Be confused or happy? Last year, my family gave a gift in my name to the Muscular Dystrophy Association where my cousin, Sarah, works. I was so overjoyed that funding would go to support the great work she was doing with these families. I felt as though my heart, like the Grinch's, grew in size that day. 

 

Now I’m all for great gifts. Even the Wise Men brought Jesus stuff, really good, pretty, shiny stuff. But I also really love the story of the shepherds, who were not fancy or well-groomed and were invited not to give gifts to Jesus, but to simply be present for the experience.

 

What might it look like this year for you to give gifts differently? An experience or a gift in honor of someone goes to support great work going on globally, locally, and nationally? 

 

This year our church is blessing five partners with our Advent Offering, with 3 being local and two international. See the list below of the ministries our Advent Offering will support. Will you please consider a gift?

 

The 2017 Advent & Christmas Eve Offering will support the following:        

    •    Kafodzidzi Primary and Middle School in Ghana serves several hundred children and is in desperate need of repairs to remain functional.  This is the home school of Sam Asmah, FUMCR member and employee.

      

    •    Project Transformation utilizes the talents of college students in partnership with United Methodist churches to offer daily activities to children in low income neighborhoods. 
 

    •    Network of Community Ministries is the emergency social service agency of Richardson assisting Richardson residents with rental and utility help, as well as providing food pantry and clothing closet items. 

    •     

    •    Skuinskloof Primary School in South Africa is a ministry of FUMCR. We continue to send work teams to Africa to build and improve facilities at this school.
 

    •    Go Camp is a North Texas Conference supported camp experience for children in urban and rural communities who may not have access to summer camps. FUMCR will host one of these camps in 2018.  It will be an opportunity for children in our community to have a camp experience that otherwise would not have such an opportunity.      

 

If you would like to give to the Advent Offering online, you may do so here.

 

This Sunday we are continuing our series, Reindeer and Donkeys, by talking about Santa and Saints.

 

See you Sunday!

 

-Julie 

Nov
30

Christmas stars in my neighborhood sky

Posted by rrindfuss    2 Comment(s)    Add a Comment  comment-icon.png

Between kindergarten and eighth grade Christmas stars started appearing in my neighborhood. Farmers fashioned stars out of lumber and lights and mounted them on the tops of silos and other tall structures on their property. One year my uncle fashioned one such star for the silo at my grandfather's farm, and a few years later it came to our house where my dad mounted it at the top of a 5-story tower that held our TV antenna. High in the air and out in the country without city lights, our star and the others in the neighborhood shown large among a night sky filled with stars, and they proclaimed the coming of Christ. So, a couple years ago when our staff was encouraged to decorate our offices for Christmas, my mind went back to my childhood.

I went to the shed behind our house where I collect scrap lumber and have a few tools for cutting it. I cut and re-cut. I drilled and inserted tiny hooks. I hung lights. When I finished I had a Christmas star, sort of.

You may be able to tell from the photo that my Christmas star had wood that looked fresh in some places and severely weathered in others. It had pieces with multiple cuts that didn't align perfectly. It had some smooth edges and some rough edges. Every light seemed to hang at a different angle, and the angles where different pieces of wood met weren't very accurate. In short this star was ugly… and perfect for a Christmas star.

The prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming messiah:

"He had no form or majesty that we should look at him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him." (Isaiah 53:2)

The author of the book of Hebrews wrote:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. (Hebrews 4:15)

The original Christmas star lit the way for Magi to find a messiah that was physically average or even unattractive and who had the same human frailties and weaknesses as the rest of us. The Christmas message is not that God one day fixed us but that one day God joined us in our brokenness.

When it comes to Christmas decorations, I encourage you to embrace a bit of ugliness and imperfection this year. Those characteristics perfectly point to the Christ that came at Christmas.

I also encourage you to join us at Access this Sunday as we continue our sermon series on Christmas contradictions and further explore the topic of "Lights and Stars."

See you soon!
Rich


Rich Rindfuss
Access Pastor
First United Methodist Church Richardson 

Nov
24

A word of gratitude from the Access team

Posted by jklossner    1 Comment(s)    Add a Comment  comment-icon.png

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving! The spirit of gratitude shows us just how closely connected gratitude is to hope, love and grace. This year we each wanted to share with you what we are grateful for. 

I'm grateful for all the strangers that have become friends this year. I see God's grace in their willingness to reach out, welcome, and embrace someone new in their lives. At church I'm continually reminded of the blessing of our congregation. You give your time, money, energy, and creativity in places and ways you wouldn't have to and make a true difference in our community. I'm grateful to live out our mission alongside you, Welcoming people for Christ, Growing people in Christ, and Serving people with Christ!
-Pastor Rich Rindfuss

I’m grateful for my Access family here. For someone who has their immediate family in other, far away, states, I can’t express how thankful and grateful I am to have found a family to share my life with here in Texas. You guys mean the world to me!
-Shandon Klein

I’m grateful for FUMCR, a place that Val and I are excited to call our church home! We’re honored to partner with other church members, guests, acquaintances, and everyone else we meet along the way in spreading the Gospel and furthering God’s Kingdom. I’m also grateful for the example our church sets in the community and the Methodist denomination on how to be a church that welcomes, worships, and serves as one body of Christ, regardless of political or social beliefs or backgrounds. What a blessing it is to have that kind of culture in church!
-Eric Czechowski
 

I’m grateful to be part of community that welcomes everyone with open hearts and minds. In a time when it’s so easy to be divided and find reasons to pull away from each other, I’m grateful the our Access community looks for ways to draw closer, to love one another more fully and serve by loving those around us.
-Pastor Julie Richter 

 

Join us as we start our new series this Sunday Reindeer and Donkeys! Christmas is full of contradictions- it can be messy and magical, sacred and secular. As we head into this Christmas season, join us as we talk about how to find the goodness and light of Jesus in the midst of it all.

See you Sunday!