Things The Spark Joy

Jesus says: focus on loving God and loving others and your joy will be complete. The Greek root of the word joy is the same as grace--joy is a gift from God, joy is the gift of knowing you are connected to the divine and this connection is not something you earn or win…it is always present with you, if you will just see it, in moments of stress, see your connection with God and with others and your joy will be complete. Joy comes in, fear goes out when we see ourselves as connected.

Tidying Up: Putting Your House In Order

When we carry around the clutter from our past, the past wounds we have inflicted...we cannot move freely, we cannot live freely, and it gets in the way of everything, it gets in the way of our relationships with others and with God, and God doesn’t want that for us. 

 Jesus says: there is a way to be released from this burden and it is the way of forgiveness. Don’t wait. Make amends now. Don’t let another day pass, make amends now. Deal with the clutter from your past today so you can free today. 

Tidying Up our Tradition

Tidying Up Tradition

When the teachings of the church are cutting off people from doing the ministry God has clearly gifted and called them to do, we must question those teachings, we must rethink those teachings, we must tidy up those traditions, now is the time for tidying up, church. 

There have been throughout the years groups of people who seek to gain power through excluding others...they have used doctrine and scripture to justify this harm; but take heart....

There have also been every step of the way, people who have stood up and said: no. They have questioned and researched and written and argued and protested and participated in civil disobedience to stand up for the excluded and marginalized and those without voice…and you know what they’ve been called? Well I’m sure they’ve been called a lot of things but here’s one:

They are the people called Methodists.

Tidying Up How We Interpret The Bible

Tidying Up How We Interpret The Bible

If you do not read the Bible, you place yourself at the mercy of those who do.  The discipline of wrestling with scripture frees you from people who want to impose their reading on you.

A prominent pastor here in Dallas thinks we should build a wall at our southern border.  He told the news the Bible says heaven has a wall around it.  That’s Revelation 21:12.  He didn’t mention there are twelve gates in that wall that never close.  That’s Revelation 21:25.  If we want to build a wall at the border like the one in the Bible, we’ll have to put big holes in it every few miles.

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Below are some practical exercises you could use to bring joy into your heart and make the Bible a greater part of your life...

Step 1: Share a verse

Pick a favorite Bible verse and share it on one or more of your social networks. Say a little bit about why it's meaningful to you.

Step 2: Share a verse with someone

Call a friend or relative and share with them a Bible verse you think might make their day brighter. Say a prayer together.

Step 3: Read the Bible together

Make an appointment to meet with a friend and spend some time reading the Bible together. Pick out a chapter, maybe the chapter your favorite verse is in, read it together and talk about how you could apply the lesson of that passage this week.

Tidying Up Our Misconceptions About God

Tidying Up Our Misconceptions About God

Many of us Christians have collected a lot of beliefs we’ve been taught and told and even repeated…this season of Lent is a time to sort through what we believe or have been told for so long and decide: which ideas about the faith do we need to keep and which do we need to throw out? This week we are tidying up our clothes or the things we put on God.

Our spiritual house is packed full with all kinds of ideas and doctrines and rules about who God is and who we are and it can be suffocating really, all the stuff, it can be overwhelming to even think about sorting through it, so oftentimes we don’t, we just ignore it and even add more stuff to it because why not?

The deeper truth is that if we don’t go through the clutter in our spiritual homes, well it’s the same truth about what happens if we don’t go through the clutter in our physical homes--it gets in the way--it gets in the way of our life and relationships.

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Below are some practical, creative and challenging steps you could take this week toward bringing joy to your heart and creating space in your life:

Step 1: Create A Reminder
Put a Post-it note in your wallet/purse that says 'Do I really need this?' If you don't, put it down and put the money you were going to spend to better use.

Step 2: Make Purchases More Meaningful
If you're buying something new, make the purchase more meaningful. What it's going to replace? What are you going to do with the old item instead? Who could it be of use to?

Step 3: Assess Your Stuff
What do you really need? What can you give away? Are there hoarding habits that need to be changed? You can give to the clothing drive at the church or your local Goodwill. Perhaps considering calling Network of Community Ministries to volunteer at their clothing closet.

The Prophetic Imagination

The Prophetic Imagination

“We are a congregation full of prophets. Together we are a prophetic community—we know what God has done in the past, we know how God has consistently worked through people to end evil, injustice, and oppression—we know now is our time. Now is our time to share God’s dreams for a better world. Thy kingdom come.”

-Rev. Dr. Blair Thompson-White

Podcast: Bumping Up Against Grace

The Practicing The Presence Podcast

With Guest: Dr. Mark Stamm

Practicing The Presence is a podcast from Arapaho United Methodist Church. This episode (Episode 2) features Pastor Blair Thompson-White and Perkins’ School Of Theology Professor Dr. Mark Stamm as they talk about John Wesley feeling “strangely warmed” and the practices that we can use in our daily lives to get close to God or as he puts it, to “Bump up against Grace.”

About Dr. Stamm

Dr. Mark W. Stamm is a Professor of Christian Worship at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University. He is a graduate of Boston University (Th.D.) where he served as a research associate and consultant on the Boston University Worship, Music, and Religious Identity Project.

Dr. Stamm is an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church, he came to the Perkins faculty in July 2000 after serving seventeen years as a pastor of local congregations in Pennsylvania and Kentucky. At Perkins, he teaches courses in liturgical and sacramental history, theology, and practice. As Chapel Elder, he gives oversight to the school’s chapel program. He also served eight years as Abbot of the Order of Saint Luke.

He has written several books related to the theology and practice of the sacraments including Let Every Soul Be Jesus’ Guest, A Theology of the Open Table (Abingdon Press, 2006) and Devoting Ourselves to the Prayers, A Baptismal Theology for the Church’s Intercessory Work (Discipleship Resources, 2014).

He is married to Margie Stamm, a nurse in the Dallas Independent School District, and they are the parents of two adult children.

A Cross-shaped Community

A Cross-shaped Community

We must see on the cross our call to action and our responsibility. We must see on the cross the people who are suffering today, those with whom Christ identifies with today. Can you see who is there today? 

I see the migrant children who are separated from their families and I see LGBTQ+ persons who have been marginalized by the church and I see children who are starving to death in Yemen because of war and I see the poor who cannot afford to go and see a doctor, and I see those who are discriminated against because of their race or their gender or their religion and can you see who is on the cross with Christ today? 

Seeing leads to feeling leads to action. We are called to see Jesus on the cross and to see like Jesus from the cross, to see a world where there is no more war and no more oppression and where everyone has what they need to thrive and to do something about it, to be foolish enough to think we can make a difference.

Citizens Of The Kin-dom

Faith & Justice Series:
Citizens Of The Kin-dom

Pastor Ginger Gaines-Cirelli, a fellow Methodist minister in D.C., makes this profound and challenging observation that instead of thinking of ourselves as Americans who happen to be Christians as we have tended to do in recent decades...

"The extraordinary alternative is for Christian communities to claim primary citizenship not in America (or the nation in which they live) but in the Kin-dom of God." 

To say yes to Jesus and yes to His kingdom is to say 'no' to the standard behaviors and standard operating procedures of the kingdoms of this world which means we will stand out a bit. I have been returning to this question again and again as I have been thinking about what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God, from Ginger Gaines Cirelli:

If churches are seeking to live as citizens of God's Kin-dom, then why are so many Christian people barely distinguishable from anyone else in their values and priorities? 

The Practice Of Saying No

The Practice Of Saying No

For a while now, spiritual leaders have been saying that the greatest spiritual problem of our time is busyness. Some have pointed out that the Chinese character for being busy is made up of two elements: heart and killing. Busyness kills the heart. That is a violent image...busyness kills the heart. Thomas Merton says that our overwork is a pervasive form of violence today.

Busyness is causing harm to ourselves and our world.

“There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence...activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

- Thomas Merton

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Video used during sermon:

Encountering Others

We are the ones to see and treat each person and each encounter as holy, to go out of our way to love our neighbors as ourselves, we are all connected. Do you hear Christ even now? 

I am being bullied, stand up for me.

I am separated from my children, help me.

I am failing in school, tutor me.

I am Muslim, welcome me. 

I am homeless, listen to my story.

There is no such thing as those people. There is no such thing as other people or other people’s children or other people’s problems.

Watch the video used during the sermon:

Paying Attention

When Moses notices the burning bush he could have said, “oh wow look at that,” and just kept going with his sheep. Or “that’s interesting but I don’t have time to check that out, I have an agenda to keep, I’ll come back later.” Or he could have been busy looking down at his phone and glanced up and thought, meh, and gone back to the captivating cat video he was watching.

The point is if he had decided to just keep on going with his sheep or if he had decided to come back later, he wouldn’t have been Moses. He would have just been another guy, just another shepherd. Instead, he is paying attention and turns aside to see the great sight of God and because he does, he becomes this great partner with God who gets to work with God to set people free.

Practicing The Presence Podcast with Diane Bricker

Practicing The Presence is a podcast from Arapaho United Methodist Church. This episode (Episode 1!) features Pastor Blair Thompson-White and Spiritual Director Diane Bricker in a conversation about how to experience the presence of God through life and spiritual practice.

Walking The Earth

Walking is an act of disconnecting and reconnecting. As we celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we remember the walks of the civil rights movement - they walked to disconnect us from a system that was designed to keep one part of us separated from another.  They disconnected themselves from thoughts of their own safety, because many of them were beaten and some of them died.  

They walked disconnected from a destination but reconnected to a purpose.  

They reconnected to each other and found courage in struggling together.  They reconnected to a sense of dignity and worth as people created in God’s image. And they walked with God, the God who executes justice for the orphan and the widow.  The God who loves the strangers, providing them food and clothing. The God who requires of us that we walk in those ways.

Waking Up To The Presence Of God

If I could summarize what the spiritual life is, I would say it is learning to see. It is earning to see the holy in the ordinary - learning to see that everything is spiritual.

The Bible is a collection of stories, poems, letters, written by people who experienced God, people who saw God and were so transformed by what they saw that they wrote about it, they passed it on to help generations that followed to see God too, to learn how to see God’s presence in our world, in our lives every moment.

Because the Biblical witness and experience and reason all point to the truth that everything is sacred and that our journey towards becoming our best selves is really about learning to see the holy everywhere. Learning to see.

Your Light Has Come

The birth of Christ is the light that has come into the world not just for the people of Israel but for the whole world, and the three kings represent that, they are foreigners from a foreign land who see the light and receive the light and pay homage to the light, too.

This light that has come into the world, this light that has cut through the darkness, is for everyone. This new day, this new dawn that marks the beginning of the end for the dark things of this world is for everyone. Salvation is for everyone.

Magnify The Lord

May you dare to believe that you are capable of magnifying the Lord and may you say: Here I am: here is my body, here is my mind, here is my present, here is my future, here is my soul, it is yours. Let me be exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me magnify your name.

Change Your Mind

Change Your Mind

Have you ever made a decision that led you off the path? Ever made a mistake that led you off the path? Ever had a feeling you were going the wrong way but you’ve been too stubborn, too hard-headed, to stop? And there is this moment when you go: oh this isn’t good. This isn’t right. I don’t have peace. I don’t have contentment. I’m not experiencing joy. You come to see this isn’t the life you were meant to live, you are off the path.

The Bible reveals this truth about the human experience--that we are good, and we start out on this path--but we tend to wander from it - we are prone to wander off the path or we think we know a shortcut or know better. Whatever the case, we end up going the wrong direction but it doesn’t change our inherent goodness, we are still good. We just are not walking in the way that leads to life and God wants that for us. God wants us to thrive. So God does everything in God’s power to help us to return.

Sermon Media:

Click Here to Watch Video From Sermon

Picture from Pastor Blair’s Hike:

Choir Christmas Cantata

On December 9, 2018 the Arapaho United Methodist Church Choir alongside the Philharmonic Orchestra of Texas presented "The Many Moods of Christmas" - a collection of traditional Christmas songs arranged by Robert Shaw and divided into 4 suites. You will also hear testimonies from Sungmoon Lee, Kasey Cummings and Eric Snyder.

Stand and Lift Up Your Heads

There are forces in this world that want us to stay numb and inside our houses wrapped in warm laundry and eating bread. There are forces in this world that would rather us not be woke.

No. We are woke because of Christ. Because the Christ in you and the Christ in me stands up in the face of fear, and in the face of suffering, and in the face of dehumanization and says: I will not look away, I will not back down, I will not sit down, I will not let it go...not until the poor have good news and the hungry are fed and the sick are cared for and the stranger is welcomed.

click here to watch the video used during the sermon