Celebrating Five Years as 'United'
We recently celebrated our five year anniversary as United Christian Church.
Dr. John Callison, our Bluebonnet Area Minister, penned the following article in the March 2008 edition of 'The Chalice':
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Sunday, Feb 10, 2008 was a special day. I wish that every Disciple in South Texas could have been with me that Sunday afternoon. I was in an afternoon worship service. There was an extended family singing some old school western gospel music. The family included a ten year old who knew his way around the drum kit.
Another extended family sang. I’m tempted to call it Southern Gospel, but that’s really too limiting to describe the beauty of it. The church kids were signing along as we shared communion. One of the preachers stood up and talked about the accomplishments the church had managed over five years. He even named the members of the congregation in the recitation of good.
The other preacher talked about her first experience with the congregation and retold some of the stories of being in that congregation as it began to find its way as a blended family.
This congregation is getting ready to send a team on the congregation’s third mission trip. This time the team is joining with some of the Austin congregations to go to New Orleans to do some hurricane relief work.
They are in an historic, old, beautiful church house that could be described as a “money pit.” You know that kind of a building . . . if the roof doesn’t leak the windows let the cold go the wrong direction . . . or the plumbing revolts . . . or the kitchen needs work . . . or the insurance bill is due . . .
But here’s the thing that impressed me. Not winning first in the Christmas parade float competition, not the music, not the lay leadership or the preaching, though all of that was very, very good. What impressed me was a single sentence that one of the pastor’s said: This is the first year we have spent more on our youth than on our building.
Near the end of the celebration, the fifth anniversary of United Christian Church in Taylor, another announcement came. This announcement was that as important as the future is, the congregation believes it must remember where it came from. So even though the old Murphy Street Christian Church building was condemned and had to be torn down, the steeple was salvaged and repaired and the place that used to be Murphy Street Christian Church is about to be dedicated as a park.
More money invested in the kids than in the building, a steeple restored and land given to become a park. And in that small congregation, born of an Anglo and a Black congregation, is an area camp director, our incoming BBA Disciples’ Men’s president, a TCMF representative, a couple who commute from Weatherford, TX to attend church, and a ten year old drummer.
What might it mean if half of our congregations invested more in our kids than our buildings?
When it was my turn to talk, I told them the truth. I could see Jesus smiling.
-John
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| Murphy Street Memorial Steeple, Feb 2008 |
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