Upcoming Events

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Can we count on you to be “evangelists” for our upcoming KPUMC programs?

Your help is needed in publicizing two upcoming events…

First, as I told you about last week, is the Connections Band show on October 9th.

Connections Classic Rock Concert Benefiting the HERO Fund
Saturday, October 9, 3:30-6:00 pm
Roberts Forest

Bring your own lawn chair (or…come early and grab the prime picnic table seats) and food/drink of your choice.

Our Congregational Care Committee is working hard to publicize this event. Look for our ads running now in the North Oak Cliff Advocate. (Much thanks to their work on this.)

Following on the heels of this event, our choir is planning a Fall Choir Concert on October 13th.

Chancel Choir Fall Concert
October 13
Picnic (BYO-Dinner): 5:30 pm in Roberts Forest
Concert: 6:30 pm in the Sanctuary
(Masks Required)

Both of these special events are definitely worthy of your attendance, and I certainly invite you to share with your friends.

One of the great challenges in our ministry right now is finding safe ways we can gather in community. But we believe these events will be inspiring, encouraging, and safe for everyone; not just our church, but all of North Oak Cliff.

Here’s a specific thing you can do for both of these events: Share on NextDoor!

Our church can’t join all the NextDoor neighborhoods surrounding us where you live, or that are in our “mission field.”
But YOU can share there…so please do!

We’ve had several sponsors for the Connections Band Show and are looking for a few more. If you’d like to financially contribute to the show so that 100% of our “love offering” can go to the cause, we would be deeply grateful. (Contact me, if you’re interested.)

Study after study shows that the best way to get folks to church events is….when a friend invites someone. 

So, prayerfully consider who you might invite to these special events.

They could be truly hopeful moments in our community this Fall.

Grace and Peace.

Eric Folkerth

Connections LIVE!

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

KPUMC Family:

By now, I hope that most of you have heard the news that our band, Connections, will be coming to Kessler Park on October 9th. We’re very excited to be coming to play a show for you all. 

When: Saturday, October 9th at 3:30 pm
Where: Roberts Forest
(NO rain location! Outdoor show, or no show at all.)
Missional Cause: The “HERO Fund” of St. Luke UMC. (info below)

Bring your lawn chair or blanket. Bring food and drink of your choosing. And come enjoy some “great music for a great cause.”

I thought I’d take my column this week to share a bit more about the band itself because the story is an interesting one.

But, also check out our band website. There are pictures, stories, and even sound clips for you to hear.

Connections was born just over fifteen years ago at a clergy retreat of ministers from the North Texas Conference. One night, I invited some guitar-playing friends up to my room to a “song circle” where we traded/played our favorites. Among them was a guy I’d never met before: Rusty King. Rusty is a music minister at FUMC Allen, and the thing that drew me to him was that he knew as many Dan Fogelberg songs as I did. Fogelberg is my all-time favorite singer-songwriter and I know just about all of his most obscure songs.

About four or five of us sat in that circle for hours, much like I might do with my professional musician friends around the late night campfires at the Kerrville Folk Festival. 

At the end of the night, Rusty threw out a crazy idea: “We should do a Dan Fogelberg Tribute Show!”

Well…I was obviously in for that. But my immediate question was: “*I* would love that, but who *else* would come?”

As it turns out: 200 people came!

We rehearsed a band —fronted by Methodist clergy, and filled in with lay folks from our churches— and put on our first show in March of 2006. The show was free, but that night we raised $2,000 for malaria prevention in Africa in a “love offering.”

We realized we’d hit on an amazing formula:

1. People and churches love this music and are yearning for “fun and family-friendly” activities.

2. We could also raise funds for worthy causes in the process, making it an amazing “connection” between music, fun, and mission.

And so, Connections was born.

We’ve now played over 50 shows. We expanded well beyond Fogelberg, and over the years have done entire shows from artists like Chicago, Eagles, Doobie Brothers, Elton John, Carol King, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Stevie Wonder, Steve Miller…and on and on…

If there’s an artist from the 70s with a chart topping song, we’ve probably covered them.

Invariably, folks come up to us after our shows and say “Hey! You guys are really good!”

We benefit from low-expectations, obviously. Who expects great classic rock from a bunch of preachers?

Incredibly, in those 50-plus shows, we have now played for thousands of people all over North Texas and raised more than $330,000 for worthy charities!

It’s a phenomenal story, really. And it’s been super humbling to be a part of it.

The show we’re bringing to Kessler will be a “Best Of Connections” show, where we’ll play one or two songs from these artists. It’s a high energy, high fun show.

Our “beneficiary” of the night will be “The HERO Fund.” Hero stands for: “Housing Eviction Relief Opportunity.” It’s a fund created by our friends at St. Luke UMC to assist Dallas residents who are in danger of eviction.

As you may have heard, the eviction moratorium has been lifted, and all across our nation the rates of evictions are rising. This, at a time when many folks are still finding it hard to do their jobs as the pandemic continues.

Therefore, our “love offering” this night will go directly to assist this good work. (Less show expenses. The band plays for free, but we have other costs we must cover.)

As you may know, we’d originally planned this show for May of last year. But the pandemic put an end to that idea. In fact, these shows are likely our *last* shows before the band takes a hiatus to work on other projects…all the more reason to come and see us now!

Our plan is for this to be an *outdoor* show. Because of our current COVID protocols, we don’t see how we can offer this show inside, and we’re pretty sure folks won’t come if we have to.

I know we are all looking for safe activities that “connect” us together. We’re yearning to be together.

I certainly hope we’ll have a LARGE crowd in Roberts Forest. For our shows to be successful in our mission giving, we generally shoot for crowds of 200 or more.

So….Kessler friends….we need your help…

1. SPREAD THE WORD AND PLAN TO COME!
If everybody who attends on Sundays or watches online comes to the show, we’ll have a great crowd.
AND! If each of us invites just one more person, we’ll have an *amazing* crowd.
We should soon have posters and other publicity we can share with you. But your word of mouth is more valuable than anything. That’s why I’m sharing the backstory of the band with you today, and the website, so you can become “evangelists” for this event.

2. VOLUNTEERS!
We need a day-of “host crew,” and some “roadies.” We need some volunteers to help host our crowd, our band, and to assist with set-up and tear down. If you’re interested in any of those, please contact me.

3. SPONSORSHIP
We’d love for 100% of our “love offering” to go toward the cause of eviction relief. But, there are costs we must cover for this to happen. If you’d like to help cover our show costs (primarily: paying our sound engineer), please contact me. Sponsorship will allow donors that night to know that 100% of what they give goes straight to needy families. I’d be happy to share details of this if you’re interested.

Our goal would be to raise thousands of dollars for eviction relief!

I have every hope this will be an amazing night for our church and for North Oak Cliff. Help us make it special!

Spread the word, and see you this Sunday.

Eric Folkerth

Never Forget

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

Saturday is the 20th Anniversary of September 11th and the first anniversary that our nation has not been at war. With all else that’s going on in our world, I have the confluence of these events on my mind today.

For many years now, I have kept in my heart the phrase: “Never Forget.”

This, as you may recall, was what so many of us were urged to do in the wake of September 11th, 2001. 

But as a Christian pastor, my question is always: “What is it that we should ‘Never Forget?’”

Obviously, the victims. Those who died. September 11th, even 20 years later, is a date of horrible tragedy, and our primary unifying calling is to remember and honor the lives of those who were lost.

But…over the years “Never Forget” became twisted and turned into a rallying cry for vengeance and war. On the ten year anniversary of 9/11, I wrote the following words that still seem like important theological questions for us today:

“Do we never forget…..the Trauma? Shock? Fear? Anxiety?
Or do we never forget….the repeated challenge of the Bible to “Fear Not?”

Do we never forget…the desperate search for personal and national security?
Or do we never forget….God’s Golden Rule? Jesus’ challenge to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?

Do we never forget….Pain….Anger…Revenge?
Or do we never forget…the spiritual truth that violence often leads to more violence?

What is it that we “Never Forget?””

——————-

Unlike some, I am not a pure pacifist. In a very uneasy and limited way, I initially understood that there was a limited argument to be made for the pursuit of those responsible for 9/11. 

Having said this, I was incredibly skeptical that war was the answer and incredibly concerned about the overwhelming sense of *vengeance* that seemed to hang in the air in those years just after 9/11.

America was hurting and America wanted *someone* to pay.

Maybe only *now* we can look back at the entirety of the War in Afghanistan and see its totality.

I know this: “Violence begets violence.”

The problem with vengeance is that it can never truly satisfy us. 

Once we start down a path of blind vengeance, there is almost never a good way to turn around. And by the time you wake up to see what you’ve wrought, it’s often challenging to even try to make things right. 

So it is that Osama Bin Laden and his leadership fled Afghanistan within months of the 9/11 attacks…

He was finally killed ten years later…

And at that moment —now ten years ago— you can make a very credible argument that any possible “just” rationale for War in Afghanistan had evaporated.

But…the war continued. Presidents of *both* parties continued it. Trillions of dollars were spent. Close to a million have died in causes associated with our Middle Eastern wars. Tens of millions of human beings have been displaced.

And now, the war has ended. And while the end was filled with some chaos, it is also true that 120,000 souls were airlifted to safety…and that is a remarkable achievement.

But, friends, make no mistake, there is a horrendous cost to our world from all of this.

The generational violence and suffering which shall yet be born by our own veterans, and by civilian families across the globe, is immeasurable. 

As a pastor, I personally believe the harmful moral decay of this war is a part of the thing that had caused our world to turn so harsh these past ten years. 

That is not to say anything about the valiant ways in which much of our military conducted itself.  But it IS to say, as our Bible teaches: “Without vision, the people perish.”

There was almost *no* vision for this war for the last decade. And the feeling of vengeance that drove our nation in the first place had faded. 

Wars are sometimes necessary, under Christian Just War theory. But the justifications of war must always be weighed against the costs:

The costs in human misery.
The financial costs.
The anticipated *future* costs in suffering and continuing cycles of violence.

I fear, friends, that we have not yet borne the full cost of this war. I shudder for the future cycles of violence that might still come from our vengeance-driven war.

Pray, friends, that future leaders might find more peaceful ways to lead our people through conflicts and toward justice. Jesus teaches us that love of the “enemy” is the greatest…and most morally difficult…of all our loves.

Therefore, I am moved by the stories of 9/11 survivors who talk of how they have achieved some level of forgiveness and how they have rebuilt their lives. They “never forget,” but they show us how to live with grief and trauma and without vengeance.

We must urge our society to do the same while also acknowledging and owning the suffering our wars have cost.

When we say “Never Forget” on September 11th, I hope we acknowledge how difficult it always is to do this with love instead of vengeance; peace, instead of war.

Our faith is what makes the difficult task for “Never Forgetting” even possible.