Dear Friends,

You don’t need me to tell you what the last fifteen months have been like.  Fifteen months!  We have gone through so much fear and isolation.  We have lived with uncertainty.  And through it all, we have found new ways to connect and be the Church together.

In McKinney and Collin County, our COVID numbers are heading in the right direction.  More and more of our congregation has been fully vaccinated.  These are encouraging signs.  Throughout this crisis, your church staff and leadership have worked hard to keep everyone safe.  Our beautiful, historic church building helps us feel close and connected when we gather together, but it has given us a unique challenge when trying to figure out how to avoid crowding together in small indoor spaces.  I’m pretty sure “crowding together in small indoor spaces” was almost chosen as our church motto, but I’m glad we went with “sharing the heart of Christ from the heart of McKinney” instead.

With all this in mind, we will be starting a new worship schedule and new safety procedures, beginning next month. Starting June 6,  we will be resuming our 8 o’clock Sanctuary and our 11:10 Sanctuary and Wellspring services.  We will be putting our Outdoor service on hold.  And, while we will still encourage everyone to wear masks (especially while singing), fully vaccinated people may choose to take their masks off indoors.  For more information about these changes, you can find our announcement here.

We are taking steps toward normal again.  Small groups are coming back, and we are working to provide new spaces and times for them to gather.  If your group wants to meet in person but doesn’t want to give up the flexibility of a zoom meeting, we would love for you to try out our new technology to hold hybrid meetings – the church staff will help you get it set up.  As always, we will continue our online worship, where people from all over the US and the world worship with us every Sunday.

I hope this finds you safe and warm. It has been another hard week.

Blessings upon everyone who is struggling through these cold days. Blessings upon all of you who are reaching out and helping your neighbor. Many of you have been helping with our Salvation Army warming station. And many of you have helped turn the Hub into an emergency shelter. You’ve brought food and water, and provided a warm place for people to spend the night. Thank you. With your help, the help of local businesses, and the help of the McKinney Fire Department, we have been able to share the Heart of Christ in a crucially important way.

It was an unusual Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday, to say the least. Nevertheless, Lent has begun. Outside our expectations and as a new experience Lent has begun. In the dead of winter, in the face of a pandemic, Lent has begun.

This year, we are going to talk about receiving grace. After a year of suffering, heartbreak, and sacrifice for those we love, we aren’t asking you to give up anything for Lent, or take on a new discipline. We have given up so much already, and we have taken on new disciplines that would have seemed unimaginable a few years ago. Those sacrifices continue. But for Lent, we will ask God to give us grace. Grace for ourselves, and grace to share with our neighbors.

On Sunday, we will remember that grace received gives us the ability to hope. We see spring in the midst of winter. We see life in the midst of death. Light shines, love reigns. Hope lives, because Jesus is the light of the world.

God bless, stay warm, and keep checking on your neighbors.

One of my favorite things in the world is the annual Native Plant Sale hosted by our local Heard Natural Science Museum and Wildlife Sanctuary. It’s a great fundraiser, with the parking lot of the Heard completely full of volunteers selling native flowers, shrubs, and trees. You can learn about building a native ecosystem, attracting pollinators, what to plant where and when. I always keep the date on my calendar to look forward to.

Of course, when you buy a plant at this sale, most aren’t full sized. When you buy a tree, what you take home is a sad little stick in a big pot of dirt, maybe with a handful of tiny leaves, maybe not. The sign says “redbud” or “rough-leaf dogwood,” and you more or less have to take it on faith.

I’ve been going to this plant sale for years now, and let me tell you about scrawny little twigs. They turn into trees! Now my backyard has a Mexican plum that blooms every year. I watch cardinals and mockingbirds play on the limbs of my redbud, and my granddaughter climb on my Texas red oak. My yard is like a different place.

I’ve been thinking about those trees this month, as we talk about small things making a big difference. This is a lesson we have learned again and again in 2020. Seeing a friendly face on a zoom call. Taking a few spare cans of food to the Little Free Pantry. Finding eggs at the supermarket. These things add up to blessing. We have all felt it. And the things within our power to do, no matter how small, can bless others more than we can imagine.

If you haven’t filled out a pledge card, I invite you to click here. Think about what you have and what you can give. Through God, the smallest twigs can grow into huge trees. And your gift, even if it may seem too small to matter, can transform the lives of God’s children in our community, across our country, and all over our world.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! Now the seasons are changing. The turkeys on Church Street are gone, and Christmas lights are up. In the life of the Church, we have stepped into the season of Advent, the weeks of preparation before Christmas.

As you saw on Sunday, other things have changed, too. After talking with church leadership, staff, and our local medical professionals, we have decided to temporarily pause indoor in-person worship. We have said from the beginning that we would allow our decisions to be guided by the data, and our current and projected COVID numbers indicate that we need to take a step back from large indoor gatherings for a while.

Advent is a season where we long to be together. But Advent is also a time of patience and expectant waiting. We have lots of great activities and volunteer opportunities prepared for this month – read about them below! We will continue opening our outside spaces for small groups. And of course we will continue worshiping online. Your church staff is actively monitoring the numbers, and we will be back in the Sanctuary and Dyer Hall again as soon as we safely can.

Although our ability to gather together is limited right now, we are all in this together. Together is the only way to make it through. Stay safe – you know how to do that. Be kind and patient – Jesus shows us how to do that. Stay connected to your friends, family, and Church – you’ll find ways to do that in this newsletter. Seasons change, and we will be back together soon.

Blessings,
Pastor Tommy

Dear friends,

What a great weekend we had! We were able to gather outside at the Hub on Saturday and in the parking lot on Sunday. How beautiful to see familiar faces in person and to hear each other sing and pray. How special was the Sanctuary on Tuesday at lunch for come-and-go prayer. We will have all three of these opportunities again this week. Go to our website and register if you would like to come.

This Sunday, we will also worship together online. It is Communion Sunday, so be prepared with your elements. Also, we have a tremendous opportunity for our communion rail offering I would like to tell you about.

Ten years ago, Rev. Derek Jacobs started a group in South Dallas that would become The Village UMC. This Sunday, they will livestream worship from their own new church building for the very first time. Derek has long been a friend of ours. He was present at the groundbreaking for our new church building in Melissa. We have been walking together for ten years, learning from each other about how to start new churches, and (recently) how to build buildings during a time of quarantine. We are blessed to be connected to God’s powerful work at The Village, and we are so excited to see this congregation find a long-term home.

Hurdles

This month, we are talking about making a path through the wilderness. What does it mean to walk a new way? What does it feel like to travel through unfamiliar territory? One thing that’s true – it takes practice to become good at walking through new places.

When I was in high school, I ran the hurdles. The 330 yard intermediate hurdles were brutal. You had to focus on each obstacle. You had to watch your step. You had to practice your technique and continually tape bruised ankles and knees. That said, the more I did, the better I became.

The Bible teaches that in unfamiliar times, God is with us. The teachings of the Bible can guide us. The love of Jesus can form us. No matter the length of the race or the difficulty of the obstacles we must hurdle, we can remember who and whose we are. If we practice love every day, our feet will know the way before long.

See you in Church, online.

Blessings,

Pastor Tommy

I grew up hiking and camping. I know the feeling of wandering in wild and unfamiliar places, of trying to follow the trail, of sometimes missing the signs and not being sure where to go next. The anxiety, the panic, of not knowing how to get back to the path I’m supposed to be walking.

So many stories in the Bible are journey stories. Stories of going from one place to another through danger and uncertainty. Stories of making our way through the Wilderness. In these stories, holy people – Saints, Prophets, and great leaders – find themselves lost, despairing, and afraid.

But in all of those stories, God gives direction. The stories and teaching of Scripture help us to find our way back toward the path toward God’s future.    

Over the next four weeks, I will be preaching about finding our way in the wilderness. This Sunday, we will talk about Jacob wrestling with the angel. We will also celebrate Holy Communion, and remember that Jesus is the truth, the light, and the way.