Salado UMC June Newsletter

I know I say this every month, but I can’t believe it’s already June. Which means, of course, it’s the kickoff of vacation season. This month, a lot of us will be traveling. So, maybe it’s a little ironic that our sermon series this month is entitled “Welcome Home.” As so many of us are traveling away from home, we as a church family will be here at home, talking about hospitality, how to make one another feel at home.

But, then again, maybe it’s not so ironic. Because for those of us who will be traveling, there are going to be a lot of people trying to make us feel at home. In fact, there’s a whole industry dedicated to making us feel at home as we travel. It’s called the hospitality industry.

I can remember several summer trips my family took to Disney World. And, at least back then, they pulled out all the stops to make us feel at home. Everything about the experience was designed to make us feel welcome, valued, appreciated. We would drive onto the park grounds and be enveloped in a sense of just a shade too-perfect comfort. My daughter Caitlin called it “entering the Disney bubble.”

Of course, it all came at a cost. Disney—and the rest of the hospitality industry—don’t do what they do out of the goodness of their hearts. They’re in it to make money. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But it does mean that what they offer isn’t true hospitality. It can be an almost spooky imitation of it, but it’s not true welcome.

And that’s because true welcome comes from the heart; it comes from a place of love. As I am fond of saying, God is love and we were created out of God’s love to live in that love. It’s in living in God’s love that we learn how to love those around us. And it’s out of that love that real hospitality and welcome is born.

In the coming weeks we’re going to talk more about this, but here’s the bottom line. There are a lot of people who don’t know that God loves them and wants a relationship with them. And there are more and more of those people moving to our community every day. The love of God living within us demands that we welcome them—into our lives, into our homes, into our church—into the arms of a God who wants to welcome them into new life lived in His love. I hope you’ll join me in doing just that.

-Pastor Tommy

Salado UMC | VBS2023

Beach Day at PDO!

Hippo (Terri Tepera, PDO Director), Shark (Pastor Tommy),

Flamingo (Rachel Mayberry, PDO Co-Director), and

Beach Barbie (Kayce Cleveland, Tumble Coach)

No Sunday School classes on Sunday, June 25th

due to Farewell Reception for Kristen.

Concluding Wednesday, June 7

Church Family

Phyllis Holder, Elaine Ory, Wes Pershall, Elizabeth Willborn, Arthur Wade Capps, JL Alley, Bea & Bob Stewart, John Garcia, Jack Oliver, Anna Tarbutton, Linda Griffith, Jack Evans,

Weeta Evans, Wilma Smith

Family & Friends

Michele King & Family, Andy Taylor, Betty Shafer, Debbie Knight,

Allan Cloud, Crawford Family, Tom & Michelle Kyle, C.A. Smith, Cynthia Merritt,

Matt Boehm, Ron & Jan Boehm, Steve Qualls, Charlotte Beeler, G'Anne Weaver,

Jeremy Colby, Andrew and Ashley Stock, Ms. Moore, Allen and Karen Kennedy, Shelley,

Brenda Scott, Deanna Sallee, Nolan Corder, Jeff Larson, Sonya Eubanks,

Cyril & Geri Armstrong, Charles King, Marisol Camacho, Gabriel Lopez,

Kenneth Shannon, Gus Zittritsch, Troy Weatherly, Nathan Barrier, Heather Luby,

Liz Rampe, Erma Bounds, Tamara Turner, Ken Von Gonten, SUMC Committees

Military

Pete Alderman, Jeffery Barnes, Amy Cook, Gerald Montanona, Daniel Collins,