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Claiming Our Baptism

Claiming Our Baptism

by Rev. Alexandra Robinson on February 07, 2024


Mark 1:4-11

Beginning last October, our church leadership underwent a period of discernment and dialogue with God and each other, to determine our church goals for 2024. 

There are three goals that we will be focused on this year as a church, as a result of their discussions and prayers.

  1. Telling our Story
  2. Championing Children and Youth
  3. Maximizing Care and Healing

Telling our Story

Jesus called each of his disciples and calls us as well, in a unique story of faith.  A large part of our work as Christians in a post-Christian world is to find ways to share that story.  Whether through word or deed, your evangelism is a witness to how God is actively at work in your life.  But many times we don’t know how to share the Christian story without sounding pushy or intimidating.  We don’t want to be off-putting but rather honor God’s presence within each person’s life through our United Methodist understanding of prevenient grace.  This year, you will be invited into unique ways to you to share your story in a grace – filled way.  The hope is that through your witness, others will be encouraged and affirmed of God’s presence in their life as well. In addition, we will be looking at ways our church communications overall can express this message so we are well known as a community of faith who believes each person lives in God’s holy love.

Championing Children and Youth

The children and youth of this generation are growing up in a different world than any of us did.  Their comfort with technology, passion for social justice, worldwide connectivity and the individualized marketing strategies they expect, will require the church to live into new ways of being.   We must ensure we are providing a church with flexibility and capacity to evolve and adapt for the future generations.  One of the ways we can provide for this is to reduce or eliminate our church debt so that our children and grandchildren are not saddled with this burden.  Release from debt is not only financial but spiritual and will allow opportunity for new programs and new opportunities for our children, youth and missions ministries to be possible.  With freedom in finances we can experience freedom for more funding of programming for these young servant leaders in the future.  Our goal surrounds not only maximizing ministry growth, but ensuring all generations in our church have opportunity to support our children and youth.

Maximizing Care and Healing

The concerns of our world have a place in the church, because Jesus was one who met people in the pain and suffering they experienced.  Jesus offered wholeness and healing by inclusion into a new community of God’s love and belonging.  As we look at the many places in our world where healing is needed, they are numerous:

  • The mental health crisis our nation is experiencing is affecting all ages, but particularly our youth in a rise of depression and anxiety.
  • The desire for escape from the troubles of our world is one cause of the rise of all addictive substances, from alcohol abuse to Fentanyl overdose.
  • The pain we see from food scarcity and homelessness is evident in our missions of Laundry Love, Habitat for Humanity, Kyle’s Place, Denton Serves, Love Pacs, Christian Community Action and Salvation Army.
  • The epidemic of loneliness is prominent in all ages with 80% of persons under the age of 18 reporting loneliness, and 1 in 10 people saying they do not have one close friend to turn to in a time of need.

As a church called to reach the people where they are at, our church will maximize opportunities for addressing these topics, from providing support groups to expanding our reach of community services.

If you are interested in getting more involved in one or more of the church’s responses to these issues, I encourage you to attend our next church council meeting.  We will be meeting on Monday, February 26th at 7 p.m. to work with one another and the 21 different lay led teams of our church who have established goals for addressing each of these concerns.

I pray that you will not sit on the sidelines and watch, but will claim the profession of faith that we will make in our baptism affirmation this week.  We are ones who are holy loved by God and are called to love one another wholly.  As we renew our baptism this week in all three worship services, I believe that God is calling us into a new year of mission and ministry of loving our neighbor wholly.

About the Author
Rev. Alexandra Robinson

Hi!  My name is Alexandra, but most people at the church call me Pastor Alex.  Since I’m the senior pastor here, and the person who you will hear preaching most Sundays, I thought you might like to have a less formal biography, and learn a little about why I preach what I do!

I was born in London England because my mother was British, so I spent a lot of my summers overseas. This gave me an appreciation for different life experiences and cultures from a young age.  I primarily grew up in Houston, Texas, and one of my first memories of the states was being ridiculed for my British accent by a boy at the kindergarten bus stop.  Not only did I change my accent to fit in with the other kids, but I’ve kept a lifelong desire to ensure others don’t feel like an outcast.  When I was in 5th grade I attended a small school and found out I was the only student who did not have a church home. So I promptly went home and told my parents we needed to start going to church.  Fortunately, the closest church to our house was United Methodist, and when I sat in the pew, I looked up at the 80 year old man preaching from the pulpit and thought “I want to do that someday.”  To say the least, it didn’t make much sense.  I didn’t know much about church and I’d certainly never met a female preacher.  So although I became an active church member, I pushed the idea of being a preacher far back in my mind. 

When I went to college at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, I changed my major five times and still graduated in four years (thank goodness it was a liberal arts school!). Ironically in all of those majors, none of them was religion.  I graduated having learned the power of deep friendships and a lot about psychology.  Even as I began working as a child life specialist in a children’s hospital, that little nagging voice of preaching kept creeping up to the front of my mind.   If there is one thing I know about God’s character, it is that God has a sense of humor and is persistent.

Finally, I met a female preacher and she encouraged me to attend seminary, which I thought was a calling to do one of three things I was passionate about:  either be an advocate for children’s peace and justice ministries,  a missionary in Africa, or a children’s minister.  Yet, by the invitation of another female pastor, I worked in the local church and found my gifts and talents were better suited there.  This just goes to show the importance of people encouraging you to see what you can’t see in yourself. 

In addition, I met my husband, David Robinson, at that local church, Greenland Hills United Methodist.  He asked me out before a potluck lunch in the fellowship hall one day, and I wrote my phone number down for him on a lottery ticket. Now we have a house, three kids and two cats. You can ask him if he hit the jackpot and I’m sure he will have something funny to say about that.  He’s taught me the value of a good sense of humor.

We’ve raised our family together through 5 different churches, who have loved our kids and helped us to be parents when we didn’t know how.  Each church has taught us something new about God and ourselves, and has pushed us to limits we didn’t think our faith could go. We know the stresses of being working parents, and juggling all the things.  As my husband is an architect and I work full time too, it has not always been easy to raise a family as “pastor’s kids.”  But through these United Methodist churches, we’ve been given friendships that have become like family, been able to teach our children the power of sacrificial servant leadership, and experienced generosity beyond expectation.  My children’s life experiences have ranged from visiting with the homeless to meeting millionaires.  This year, as my twin boys head off to college and my daughter starts high school, I can’t imagine better people they could have encountered in these formative years. 

If you are wondering about who I am, I hope this has given you a little bit of a glimpse, and we will meet in person soon. Finding a church home that is the right match is an important decision, and I want to support you in navigating that path.  Check out our services online, peruse our website, read one of my weekly devotionals, and feel free to reach out for a coffee or visit over the phone.  It would be an honor to be invited into your life and walk this faith journey with you.

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