Reason for the Season

Rev. Eric Folkerth

Very early in our marriage, Dennise was putting up our Christmas tree when something surprising happened. This was a long time ago when we bought a yearly real tree.

The tree was in the front window of our house at the time, which was pretty far back from the street. So, we rationalized, nobody is going to see the decorations we put on the street side. Therefore, we decided to load down our tree with decorations on the *room* side of the tree instead.

Our thought was: our friends and family could enjoy all our ornaments with us. Their beauty wouldn’t be wasted with nobody seeing them. So, we decorated the tree in this way, admired it for a quick second, then went out to do some errands.

When we returned, much to our surprise, the tree had tumped over into the room. We had loaded down that side of the tree with so many large and weighty ornaments that it fell over on its side.

That’s a pretty good metaphor for the Christmas season, don’t you think?

We spend so much time trying to get things “perfect” during the holidays.
Perfect presents.
Perfect parties.
Perfect family stories in perfectly written “Christmas letters.”

We try to put our “good side” out toward the world for everyone to see.

But sometimes we load ourselves up so with so much busyness, worry, and general trying to “look good,” that we get out of balance, and our holiday “tumps over.”

There Good News, of course…
The entire Christmas story itself is about a God who “tumps over” all our expectations.

God comes to earth as a small baby, born to a migrant teenager, in a forgotten land. Christmas is about following the God the “tumps overs” the expectations of “perfection” that we human beings far too often try to achieve; and reminds us that, actually, God is present in all of God’s children, everywhere.

So, don’t get too busy this holiday season that you miss the real message of the season in first place. We had a wonderful Sunday last week, between the inspirational UTD Chamber Singers, a large potluck, and thirty seven carolers in the late afternoon.

Join us at church on the next two Sundays in Advent and make your plans now to be with us on Christmas Eve. Attending worship during these special Sundays is a way for us to take a breath, slow down, and remember again “the reason for the season.”

See you Sunday,

Eric Folkerth

Plan to Spend Your Day @ KPUMC This Sunday!

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

I hope you are all making plans to be with us on Sunday at the church. As I trust you’ve seen in our announcements, newsletter, and video, there are a lot of activities happening Sunday to help inspire you in the holiday spirit.

First, we’re blessed to have the UTD Chamber Singers with us as our special musical guests in worship. And I know you are all grateful for the leadership of Jonathan Palant as their director.

They will be with us for our all-church potluck after worship. So don’t miss the chance to connect with them, and with members of our church family, as we celebrate the season.

Finally, I’m very excited about our caroling that afternoon. We’re going to do things a bit differently this year. After meeting at 4:30 pm at the church, we are pre-arranging stops at four of our own member’s houses to carol for those who cannot get to church regularly. I wish we could do everyone, but I’m sure that spreading the holiday joy to these “shut-ins” will be meaningful to them.

When we’ve finished that, our final stop will be at the clubhouse at the “Highlands of Kessler Parkway.” It’s a great space where we’ll invite all our members who live there to join us for hot chocolate and one final round of caroling.

Don’t miss all the fun!

See you Sunday.

Eric

Sundays of Thanks

“The more we give thanks, the more we give thanks…”

This is an expression that has resonated with me for some years now. Time and time again, I find that the more I am able to slow down and be genuinely thankful for the blessings of life, the more that I am able to find…more blessings in life.”

The *act* of Thanksgiving itself leads to more thanksgiving.

Sunday we will start two straight “Sundays of Thanks” at Kessler Park. For the next two Sundays, we will focus on gratitude in our lives, gratitude for our lives, and gratitude to God.

When I am giving thanks, I find that I try to start with the obvious, huge things. For example, about this time of year, I try to be thankful for central heat and air. I try to remember that having a warm home is a genuine blessing. Not everybody has it.

And so, when we can become more deeply grateful for our blessings, we can also find a renewed desire to share those blessings with others.

Take those neighbors without a home, for example. Our friends over at Oak Lawn UMC have started opening their church as an emergency shelter on sub-zero nights. It’s totally against “code” for them to do so, but they’re doing it anyway, as a way of serving the homeless community in their time of need.

Our own Oscar Brown has been a contact for us with our friends over at Oak Lawn UMC. It may well be that there will be chances for you to help serve at Oak Lawn on these emergency nights. If you are interested in “paying forward” your own gratitude for shelter by volunteering there, let Oscar or I know. We’ll try to communicate the opportunities as we come to know them.

In any event, that’s just one way of how thanksgiving might turn from internal gratitude to external action.

Finally, of course, thanksgiving is an act of prayer. It’s an act of recognizing our dependence on others, and the many blessings we so often forget to name.

So, join us the next two weeks as we enter a season of Thanksgiving at Kessler Park.

Grace and Peace,

Eric Folkerth