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Listen in as we talk about Mark 6:1-6 in the 5th sermon of our Welcome Home sermon series. CoVid19 has pushed us away from the comfort and predictability of "home." We were excited about returning to normal but find that the world is not as we left it. Join us for this sermon and commentary about what we see in the world right now.

Do you feel like the storms are raging? Is the world tossing you like a ship on the sea? Like wind and water and all sorts of things out of your control have taken ahold of your life, and you just don’t have the say over your day and outcomes of your efforts like you used to? Do some days just make you feel powerless and alone? Do you find yourself longing for the way it used to be? Do you find yourself longing for the comfortable familiarity of home? Join us for this weeks episode of Heartstrings sermon and commentary based on Mark 4:.35-40. The disciples encountered storms while they were away from home. What did they discover? Jesus was in their midst...

Being away from home isn't always about fear. It is outside of normal, routine, comfort, and safety that we experience the most amazing moments. Join us for this weeks sermon and commentary on Mark 1:21-28 from Heartstrings at First United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs.

This week we are exploring the moments in our lives when we have left home. What is home? What is it to leave home? The disciples left for work one morning, and everything changed. Join us as we begin this sermon series with Mark 1:16-20, "Leaving Home." Wow, quite a year, wasn’t it? Who could have imagined at the end of 2019 that our world would be so different today...that we would have travelled through so much, changed so much, in just the course of a year. And now? Welcome home! Like all visits home, things are not as we left them. Join us as we take a journey together through leaving home and returning again. Through the moments that take our breath away, the storms, the joys, and the struggles that any adventure away from home invites us to experience.

There are moments in life when we are stopped short by death. Death of a loved one. Death of a dream. Death of a way of life. We can’t explain to you why bad things happen (but people always try). This is a mystery that humanity has wrestled with since we could think big thoughts. But what we can believe, is that our God, who doesn’t make tragedy happen, does not have shallow words of comfort but goes into the depths of grief and pain and fear. And anger. And meets us there with compassion. Compassion: to feel with.

Have you ever been so excited for something, so focused, moving full on towards it… and then, it was gone? Beginnings are so exciting! So full of potential and hope and joy. Jesus came up from the waters of his baptism, only to find the beginning of his ministry interrupted by the wilderness, the devil, hunger, and the Holy Spirit. Will you join us, as we begin the interrupted journey with Jesus?

This morning, Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of James, and Salome come with tears, faced with the daunting task of preparing his body, giving away his things, sorting through the remains of a life, so beautifully lived. They were not coming to the tomb expecting Easter Bunny’s, eggs, anything beautiful… they were expecting grief and pain and tears…

"We give because it is simply an act of worship. It doesn’t earn God’s love or forgiveness we don’t buy our way into heaven. We already have God’s love and forgiveness. We already have an invitation to the heavenly banquet. Giving is a tool to become the most beautiful, most true version of ourselves. God created us to be generous. That “offering plate” in whatever form it goes by you, whether a link on Facebook, a bucket on your way out, or a plate that you pass week after week after week, it is not the church begging for money. it is a reminder that God created us to be extravagantly generous. We all need a reminder, every week to let go… It is more blessed to give than receive. We need, week after week, the reminder that we have so much to be grateful for. We need the reminder that God is our God not our money or our things. The plate is not begging for a handout, it is an opportunity to worship the God that first loved us."

The risk is that we add these new things into our lives, prayer, worship, reading scripture, serving, but we never allow them to shape the very core of who we are. We do these things, not to earn our way into heaven, not to earn God’s love or forgiveness, but because they shape us into the people we wish to become: deeply committed disciples. And scripture and tradition tell us these are the things we do.

"I don’t know what will work for you. I don’t know what habits you need to create to be a person deeply in love with scripture. Allowing it to shape and form your life. But I do know that the first step, maybe the most important one, is to sit down, soon, tonight if possible. Write down your plan." - What is YOUR plan? Did you write it down?

Week 1 -Worship and Prayer The next five weeks will be a more practical sermon series. A list of things for us to do. Now, I’m not a rules person. That’s wrong, I am a rules person, I just think they are made to be broken. So, I need rules, to break rules. I do, however, believe in the power of goals and intentions, guidelines to support my personal growth. I believe in brushing my teeth twice a day, taking my vitamins every day, creating a budget monthly, not really rules but really good guidelines to build a beautiful life. https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/heartstringsfumc?__eep__=6and__tn__=*NK-R (#HeartstringsFUMC) https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/umc?__eep__=6and__tn__=*NK-R (#UMC) https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/sermon?__eep__=6and__tn__=*NK-R (#Sermon) https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/preacherchick?__eep__=6and__tn__=*NK-R (#PreacherChick) https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/methodist?__eep__=6and__tn__=*NK-R (#Methodist) https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/tellmewithouttellingme?__eep__=6and__tn__=*NK-R (#TellMeWithoutTellingMe)

This extravagant, beautiful love, this is our strength and our shield as we take this journey through living… it is this wild, extravagant, grace that we put our trust in, that gives us courage… that invites us to the dance floor to discover a joy beyond understanding. It is this extravagantly boundless love that invites us to become wild hearts ourselves, it is this vision of God’s wild heart that we, as a community, will strive to live into.