by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Every year during Thanksgiving week I come back to this prayer by German Mystic Meister Eckhart:

“If the only prayer you ever pray in your entire life is “thanks,” it would be enough.”

This morning as I write you my heart is filled with such thanks for each of you and for the opportunities we have to be in ministry in North Oak Cliff.

Our big Sunday was incredibly powerful…Pledge Sunday, the “SAS vote” and Metro District Conference…all happening in our building two days ago.

Then Monday I spent the day with sixteen of our Familia Garcia at our house…a beautiful and blessed thanksgiving celebration.

But let me tell you what stays with me today…

It’s not the administrative things we do…it’s the mission.

As I mentioned in Sunday’s sermon, by a grace-filled confluence of the calendar, we had MULTIPLE mission-related activities just this past week.

Tuesday: We served a meal for the longterm HIV/AIDS residents at Hillcrest House.

Wednesday: We played bingo and visited with the older adults at Tyler Street Tower.

Thursday: We provided desserts for the members of “The Well” community here in North Oak Cliff.

Those are mission activities we do regularly, but this month they just happened to all fall during the same week!

But…we we’re not done…

Also on Thursday, we delivered twenty-five Thanksgiving baskets to Wilkinson Center. These are the baskets you’ve seen on the back rows of our sanctuary the past few weeks now safely delivered by Ken and Colleen Kelley.

Your generosity and the meat vouchers the Center provides, will mean that hundreds of neighbors will have a traditional Thanksgiving meal this week that they might not otherwise be able to afford.

But…we’re *still* not done…

Last night our “Kessler AA Group” met for their annual Thanksgiving gathering. This is an incredibly powerful yearly event where members and their guests gather to share the powerful stories of their sobriety journey with each other. Dozens of folks came together to celebrate the sobriety they are maintaining, the hope they have, and their gratitude for “The Kessler Group.”

Friends, front and center in my own gratitude-filled heart this week are all these stories of how we and our church reach out to our community each and every week.

Elsewhere in this newsletter you’ll find a link to the online pledge card if you wish to make a 2024 pledge to KPUMC.

Whomever you gather with this week —a large family, a few small friends, or even a quiet meal with yourself— I hope and pray you will embrace the spirit of Meister Eckhardt’s prayer.

And even if your life is filled with personal loss or suffering this holiday season, I hope you can take some comfort in the healing ministries of our church as signs of joy and love that abide even in your challenging season.

I will share this with you. Sometimes as a pastor you drive home at night from a church meeting beaten down by conflict, or bad news, or a to-do list that’s far too long.

But lately here’s what I notice about myself…here is what happens to me instead…

Almost every night, for months now, as I drive back along the Jefferson Viaduct —the incredible panorama of Dallas sprawling out in front of me— I am struck by how much joy I feel, how much inspiration I get from the ministries of Kessler Park UMC.

Every night, as I take in the twinkling neon of downtown and look down at the tiny Trinity, I say a prayer of thanks to God for YOU.

Literally and genuinely I do this…I cannot recall the last time I did *not* feel welled up with gratitude in this moment on that bridge…

It’s a beautiful blessing for me to remind myself of my own gratitude…for YOU…and for the difference you all make to North Oak Cliff and our world.

Grace and Peace,
Eric Folkerth