December has really been a busy month for First United Methodist Church:  We decorated the church for Christmas Season and added the Advent Candle Wreath.
Our church was the dropping off point for this area for Cookies for the Troops which was a Conference Wide project led by Rev. Bob Murchison in Coleman.  We received 283 Boxes of Cookies from Cisco FUMC; Greens Creek UMC; Hamilton FUMC; Oakdale UMC of Stephenville; Laurel St. UMC of Dublin; Dublin FUMC; Ogelsby FUMC; Stephenville FUMC and Palo Pinto Area UMC's.  On December 19, Ray LaBaume and myself loaded the cookies in a trailer and delivered them to Dyes AFB driving through some very heavy rains to get there and back.  
The Advent Devotional and lighting of each candle was performed by different families in the church each Sunday preparing us for the return of Christ.
​Our candlelight service was very well attended and we used our children as well as some adults to read the Christmas Story in Luke with Christmas Hymns or Carols between the readings and a Special Song by Pat Beaty singing and Leta Sage playing the piano, "When Christmas Come To Me".  The Devotional was "A Great Light"  based on Matthew 4:12-17.
Refreshments were served after the service and most stayed and enjoy the fellowship of each other.

We are now preparing for the end of the year with worship and then making our end of the year check out to the Conference.
Through it all, Christ has been present and helping and guiding us!
​YBIC Ken Lunsford, Pastor

Comfortable Guilt
December 04, 2017
by Tom Locke, TMF President


My dear friend Bill Enright introduced me to the idea of “comfortable guilt,” a term originally coined by Patricia Snell Herzog, an Assistant Professor of Sociology at University of Arkansas. Dr. Herzog explains that comfortable guilt is not selfishness; it is the phenomenon of comfort with the gap between what money we give compared to what we think that we should give.
Bill is the former Senior Pastor of Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, and later, the founding Director of Lake Institute on Faith & Giving at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. He now serves there as Senior Fellow.
Bill’s newly published book, Kitchen Table Giving, explores the intersections of faith, money and giving. It was during our exchange of ideas about his book and its concepts that Bill and I began discussing this notion of “comfortable guilt” and how many people know they can give more but opt to give “just enough” in order to assuage their guilt, i.e., comfortable guilt.
My guess is that many of us not only determine our financial giving by this unfortunate standard, but also generally live our lives by this principle. Offering just a few everyday examples, we realize, deep down, that we could be more compassionate to others, so we give spare cash to the homeless to keep from feeling too guilty about our deficiency. Or we know we could be more environmentally responsible, so we recycle, most of the time, to keep from feeling too guilty when we allow the water to run too long.
In general, we stay aligned with what we know God to be asking of us just enough to not feel too guilty about our shortcomings. Comfortable guilt . . .
How do we align ourselves with the difference God intends for us to make rather than succumbing to the inclination to be and do “just enough,” to be safe, to bury what we’ve been given?  Because while doing “just enough” may safely appease our guilt, it also prevents us from ever really experiencing the deep joy of investing in God’s expansive purposes. 
At TMF, we believe that we are all called to steward potential, both our own and that of those around us. God has an imagination for our world at its best, and within that imagination lies our potential as individuals and collectively, as God’s church. Because stewarding potential is at direct odds with comfortable guilt.
Stewarding potential is striving to reach our highest, while recognizing and celebrating the abundance that is all around us. Comfortable guilt is reaching only as high as we absolutely must, while living in a perpetual state of scarcity and protecting what we have.
As people of faith, is there anything about which we can afford to be comfortable – as individuals, a foundation, congregations, organizations, or a denomination? Given God’s investment in us and in our world, can we do anything less than continually working to do better tomorrow than we did today?
When we reach a state of pursuing our potential, we may be uncomfortable. Embrace the uncomfortable and see where that takes you. 
​

This Month is Advent Season and it reminds us to prepare for the coming return of Jesus Christ!
​Like the old Boy Scout moto:  "Be Prepared".  We should be prepared in our hearts, filled with Love for our fellow man/woman.  We can never fight Hate with Hate, for then Satan wins.  We must confront hate with pure Love.  Yes, some of us may become Martyrs, however remember the song "They will know we are Christians by our Love"
​Each Sunday morning during the Advent Season,  we have the devotion and lighting of the Advent Wreath candles to remind us of what this season is all about.  As I stated in a sermon a couple of weeks ago, I have learned two things that are absolutely certain.  They are: "One: There is a God; and Two:  It is not me!"
​God's ways are much bigger than our ways; His thoughts are greater than our thoughts.  We cannot put God in a Box for he is much too large for that.  There are some who think they have Him in their hip pocket for their "beck and call"; again it is impossible for us to contain God!  
​Let us rejoice in our Faith and go forth in His Love and Grace!  I pray that you have a Great Week and a Merry Christmas, and I hope to see you in Church Sunday morning; and also Christmas Eve at 7pm for our annual Candlelight Service,  so we can grow in our relationship with God and each other!
​Your Brother In Christ, Pastor Ken