Prayers, Presence, Gifts, Service, and Witness Upon uniting with this Christian community, we respond to the question: “As a member of this congregation, will you faithfully participate in its ministries by your prayers, your presence, your gifts, your service, and...
UNMUTE THYSELF: TALKING POLITICS IN CHURCH It’s taboo to talk about politics in church. God’s people are supposed to be united around our common love for God and desire to serve others, so churches avoid discussing the political issues that our communities are facing....
FUMC is a co-sponsor with Texas Impact for the Texas Faith Votes. We are being challenged with other congregations to show our pledge to vote! Please sign the pledge to vote on November 3! In light of COVID-19 safety, all eligible persons should apply to Vote by Mail....
Are you craving meaningful connection along with the spiritual accountability that can accompany sharing your faith with an intimate group? While online groups may leave something to be desired, they CAN offer solace for those who deeply desire connection. This fall,...
Last week, we hung a banner on the Family Life Center that reads, “Black Lives Matter to God and to us.” The banner hangs at a time when fewer people are driving by our building than ever before, thanks to the Coronavirus. So why hang it? FUMC has been on a...
Circle Up, a subgroup of United Methodist Women at First United Methodist Church Austin, has received a Just and Resilient Communities Grant offered through the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church. Circle Up was formed in 2018 to focus...
Our United Methodist Women (UMW) Joy Circle invites all interested ladies to join us as we discuss the UMW Mission Study, Finding Peace in An Anxious World, beginning this week. Please contact Elizabeth Lerner at earendlerner@yahoo.com or at (512) 589-6305 for more information or with questions.
"God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble." -Psalm 46:1Barnabas, The Encourager Meet Barnabas, the FUMC Staff Encourager. This “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36) lives to encourage people through challenging times. When Pastor Taylor mentioned a...
Stories from people building community and fulfilling the mission of the church in new ways during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Will we ever get there? One part of traveling that I do not miss is the nearly-constant barrage of questions from the back seat, all centered around the same theme: Are we there yet? Children have a different sense of time--I’m not quite sure I’ll ever figure it out!...
Dear Church, Part of the nature of providing virtual worship is that everything is completed several days in advance, in order to allow time for post-production editing and uploading to the platforms where you can view and participate in the worship service....
Order Deadline: June 15 Fathers can be the hardest to shop for when gift time comes around. This Father’s Day, we are encouraging gifts to be used by fathers across the globe as an alternative to the usual standby tie or some other gift item you might purchase. An...
Dear Church, I want to share with you that our leadership is hard at work developing guidelines and protocols that will govern our approach to reopening the FUMC building in the future. Our approach is cautious; we are taking very seriously the call to “Do no...
We are living in such an unprecedented time that almost everyone is struggling with grief and loss, whether it's the loss of health and safety, the loss of a job, the loss of community, or the loss of normalcy or a daily schedule. Add to that the grief that you may...
I’ll be honest. When deciding which of the spiritual disciplines to lift up in this Eastertide series of sermons, we intentionally decided not to do a sermon on Service. Truth is, service is an area in which First Church excels; when others ask me about our church, I am always quick to note that this is a church where we don’t just write checks—we get our hands dirty in the actual work of serving others. It’s one part of our “personality” that I appreciate the most. I’d like to lift up a distinction that may be helpful for us in consideration of service, and that is the distinction between service carried out as an act of love and care for another and service taken on as a spiritual discipline. These aren’t mutually exclusive—hopefully all service is done with a measure of love for others, and really any service can help us to grow spiritually, but I invite you to consider what might be different about a practice of serving for the purpose of training your spirit.