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Thank You God

Youth Ministry is just like any other job in our world, it has good days, great days, bad days, and awful days. Then you get a day like yesterday, where God shows up and blows you off your feet. I need to rewind back to August right quick to explain what happened yesterday. In August or September, I can’t remember which really we had a Student Leadership Retreat. At these retreats we gather together and put everything on the table for the students to know about, in this case, I showed the team what 2015 – 2016 looked like for the Student Ministries, at First United Methodist Church. Conversations that day were great, we were thinking and re-thinking, but there has always been an event that was hit or miss. Our Student Ministries Christmas Party. Last year at our party we had a whopping 55 students show up and the plan for the right was a progressive dinner and a white elephant gift exchange.

  1. Have you ever done a Progressive Dinner with 14 vehicles? Well, I wouldn’t recommend it.
  2. Have you ever done a white elephant gift exchange with 55 students!? Again, definitely, wouldn’t recommend it.

So, we had a quandary and a good one at that. We had more students than we expected to show up, so it was time to rethink how we celebrate Christmas as a Student Ministry. There are moments in student where I am immensely proud of my students. In response to this Christmas party experience, they decided this year in lieu of receiving gifts to give back to the volunteers of the student ministry. Last night was our Volunteer Ministry Awards Night, our very own VMA’s, and it was filled with great fellowship, a fun game show and incredible worship.

During worship our speaker, Will Whitworth, who is a junior of Cleburne High School said very eloquently this:

“If youth are the hands and feet of Christ and they are as we all are, but volunteers you are the arms and the legs. The hands and feet can’t function without the help of the arms and legs. We are connected in one body.”

What a powerful image of God and the ministry we have been called to do. We are all connected, and while we don’t do all the same things in the community we all connect all these things to the Kingdom. I am beyond blessed to walk the walk of faith with such as these. Thank you, God for all that you have given us and that you, in fact, are Immanuel. You are with us!

Can’t wait for 2016 VMA’s!

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Grandma

I wanted to share something that I wrote for my Grandmother’s memorial service. I think it clearly expresses even more what a great woman of God she is.

Hi my name is Bradley Alexander and I am one of Mary K’s grandsons. As I stand here this morning I find it difficult to honor someone that did so much for so many people. Where do you even start? Mary K or Grandma was like a connection magnet. She loved connecting. From early on in her life she was deeply connected with God and his son Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior and even was known to say that doing ministry to and with the least of these was a deep connection she had as well and we all have.

She was deeply passionate about her faith and living out that faith. She was actually very passionate about connecting with her family and it was always too soon when we had to depart. Definitely feeling that today. She revitalized our family reunion years ago and it has been going to decades under her leadership. Grandma always loved connecting with people, she just did. She loved being around people at church, teaching Sunday school, being with family on holidays like thanksgiving and christmas.

The deepest that Grandma gave us though was something else entirely. She connected all of us to who she saw us to be. She would always tell me when I lived with Grandma and Granddad while I attended Texas Wesleyan University that I was so capable of doing many great things, it was just about showing up and seeing yourself for who you really are. Before the Texas Rangers ever used the phrase Never Ever Quit Grandma used it frequently by the way she lived her life and loved the people in her life.

Grandma, I love you and thank you for all that you did for me and I promise that I will always seek to do what you taught me. To Love God, To Love People, Speak from the Heart always, and to speak the truth at all times even when it hurts. Even further I promise to follow the recipes as written in our family cookbook.

I love you Grandma!

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Love This!

“We wake into a world we didn’t make, and into a salvation we didn’t earn. Grace is underway before we even reach for the cornflakes.” – Eugene Peterson –

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God’s Love

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. -Lamentations 3:22-23