David’s Bucket

This morning I’m excited to be heading to Muskogee, Oklahoma to spend the week with our High School students during their annual mission trip. Over the next five days, these students will be working in groups of 6-8 students and 2 adults on small construction projects for many families who find themselves in need in the Muskogee area. I’m honored to be going as the “camp pastor” for the week.

When I worked with HS students full time, I always reminded parents that Mission Trip was the most important event of the year for our youth ministry. What I discovered was that I could preach something 40 times to my students, but when they had the opportunity to provide a tangible blessing to someone else in need, it was a transforming moment in their lives.

No other opportunity led to more profound change in my student’s life than mission trip.

So I hope you will join with me this week in praying for these kids. It’s going to be a hard week of work, but it’s an amazing opportunity for God’s spirit to work in their lives. Specifically, would you pray for these five things.

• Pray for Safety! Power tools will be involved! Our kids will be traveling in fifteen passenger vans. There are lots of “moving parts” to the week. Pray for safety throughout the trip for our students.
• Pray for our Adults! The work week is hard on our teenagers and even more so on the adults who are serving as sponsors for these trips. They will be richly rewarded to share this time with our students, but it will be a physically demanding week for them!
• Pray for Muskogee! You can only imagine the impact that a group like ours has on a community. Pray that as our students seek to complete their construction projects, God would use that work to continue reconstructing lives and all those who live in this area.
• Pray for our Kids! We want God’s spirit to move in their lives! Pray for God to reveal himself to these young people in an amazing way this week. For some, it may be the first time they say, “God I want to serve you with my life.” For others, this week may be another step in deepening their relationship with God!
• Pray for me! I’m really thrilled to have the chance to speak to our kids each night. I’ll be talking to them each night about how God “redefines” us. Would you pray for God to lead me as I share with them?

Thank you so much for lifting up our kids in prayer this week.

Here are a few pictures from the night of my ordination. The first one is of me being ordained. This shot was taken by my Mom from the balcony at First United Methodist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.

Here’s the rest of the gallery. Click the thumbnail for a larger view.

Over the past several months, I’ve been working with our Bishop to launch his new blog which is officially live today. Bishop Lowry came to the Central Texas Conference area in August of 2008 and has in a very short time created a great sense of energy and excitement about the future of our Central Texas conference churches. I was honored to work with him on this project.

You can find the Bishop’s blog at www.bishopmikelowry.com.

If you would like to subscribe to receive the latest posts from the Bishop’s blog, click here.

I posted yesterday that I would be spending the first half of this week in Fort Worth attending Annual Conference. To begin our time of conferencing together the past two years, we have participated in a Memorial Service to honor all those clergy and laity who have passed away in the last year. We do so to be reminded that as we continue the work of the church we do so with a “great cloud of witnesses” who have gone before us.

While the clergy names are called out individually, the names of all the laity are printed in the worship guide and placed on the altar during the service. As you might imagine, with over 300 churches represented, there are too many names to say out loud. As the service was beginning I found myself browsing through that extensive list of names and I came upon one that put a lump in my throat and brought a tear to my eye. I was scanning over the churches that my dad had served, each of them representing another part of my childhood. While looking at the names for First United Methodist Church Granbury, I saw the name of Jim Cogdell.

Jim and his wife Cora were faithful members of First United Methodist Granbury, which my Dad served during my High School years. They were a wonderful blessing to my entire family, but Jim and Cora really went the extra mile for me.

When I decided to take the position of student intern at the Methodist Student Center as a next step towards responding to my call to ministry, Jim and Cora sent me $100  to help fund that position. I was amazed at that level of generosity, but deeply humbled each subsequent month when another check for that amount found it’s way to the mailbox of the Texas A&M Wesley Foundation.

When I told Jim and Cora that I believed God was calling me into ordained ministry, they believed me… maybe even more than I believed myself. Their act of generosity was one of many that were a great source of encouragement to me as I continued to discern my call to full time Christian service. I’ve never forgotten that feeling, and how moved I was to know that others saw in me something that I was only beginning to see in myself.

Tonight, during the service of ordination, I will kneel at the altar at First United Methodist Fort Worth before my Bishop along with my two sponsor Elders; my father, Rev. Mike Alexander and Rev. Mike Ramsdell and my District Superintendent and dear family friend, Rev. Don Scott. They will lay their hands on me and I will be ordained as a full Elder in the United Methodist Church.

Today is a day I’ve been anticipating for almost 16 years. I’ve invested myself in a lengthy process in order for this day to come. I’ve endured 81 hours of seminary education, written countless pages of essays and responses for my academic credentialing as well as my affirmation by the appropriate committees of our church. I’ve answer a lot of questions, and done my best to prepare myself for this sacred moment.

But seeing Jim’s name was a powerful reminder to me that I have not come to this place alone.

I am here because of people like Jim who believed in me and gave of themselves to help affirm what God what doing in my life. I simply would not be here without him. He is one of my saints who gave a part of his life in order for me to truly find mine.

From the depth of my heart, I owe so many a debt of gratitude.

My life is fully funded by God’s grace and the generosity of each of you.

Paul says it this way to the church at Ephesus.

“As a prisoner for the Lord, then, I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.”

That is the intention and aspiration of my life.

Thank you friends for this day.

The first three days of this week I will be spending in Fort Worth for Annual conference, a gathering of all the United Methodists churches in the Central Texas area. Along with the rest of our pastoral staff and several other members of our church we will be representing First United Methodist Church Mansfield during our three days of business sessions and worship gatherings. This year is a special year for me as I will be ordained as a Full Elder during the Tuesday night ordination service.

If you would like to tune in to the Monday morning Memorial service [10:15 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.] or the Tuesday night service [7:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.] online by visiting www.ctcumc.org. Both of these worship services will be held at First United Methodist Church in Fort Worth and are open to the public if you would like to attend.

Several members of our team will be heading out to Whitney, Texas for several days of what we call, “Study leave.” During this time, we’ll be looking at the message series we have planned for the remainder of 2010.

I covet your prayers this week as we seek to put plans in place to make every single weekend an experience that lives up to our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ who love God, love others, and serve the world.

Well, sort of…

It’s actually my blog’s birthday.

davidsbucket.com turns five years old today.

Five years ago today, I started this little side project in order to, “work out the chaotic ramblings of my soul.” At least that is how I expressed it back then. The truth is that when this whole thing started I had no idea what I was doing and that confusion extended beyond the blog alone.

In short, a lot has changed in my life in five years.

That’s not to say that I have anything figured out, but I’m not the same person I was five years ago which is a good thing.

This blog has been my companion on that journey and along the way, I hope some of what I have shared has been a blessing to you as well. I continue to write today because this is an important part of my own growth, but I also write with the sincere desire for this to be a source of hope and encouragement for others…

I hope I can say the same thing in five years.

Until then, I hope you’ve been blessed by this post… the 1,211 one I’ve written over the past 1,825 days.

During all our worship services this past weekend we introduced you to Emily Sherwood. Emily grew up in our church and will be spending two months this summer working as an individual volunteer in mission in Liberia. While there, Emily will be teaching English to children.

I hope you will consider supporting Emily in this endeavor. Here’s a few ways you can help.

• Pray for Emily! In fact, go ahead and start praying for Emily today. Ask God to bless her on this trip. Ask for traveling mercies for her as she makes this long journey. Pray for the kids she will be serving in Liberia.
• Purchase school supplies for the children! At the bottom of this note, you can find more information about the supplies Emily needs!
• Make a financial gift! Not only does Emily have traveling and living expenses while in Liberia, she is also raising funds to ship all the supplies we will be donating to Liberia.

Here’s the supplies she is collecting.

• Basic school supplies, including pencils, pencil sharpeners, pens, paper, crayons, markers, spiral notebooks, construction paper, scissors, glue, rulets, etc.
• Books for children ages 6-18. Preferably non-textbooks. English is the preferred language.

These can be either new or gently used items.

Donations may be brought to the Wesley Mission Center during the week or droped off at the Mission Connection desk [located adjacent to the main sanctuary] after any worship service.

If you would like to read more about Emily’s preparation, see pictures from her trip last summer, and follow her on this journey, please visit her blog, emilyinliberia.wordpress.com.

Thank you for supporting Emily!