 What I love about the United Methodist Church is this understanding of grace that is for all and in all, this grace that is at work in all of us, shaping us and transforming us and moving us, this grace that's available to all of us regardless of who we are, where we come from, what we've done, that to me is foundational. I also love that we are about putting our faith into action, loving God with all of our heart, mind and soul and loving our neighbor as ourselves. As a cradle Methodist, I love the people. The people are the church to me from birth through childhood, through youth group, the people over and over have represented Christ and represented God's love. So one of the things that I love about the United Methodist Church is just the spectrum, kind of the balance to it that you have in leadership you have clergy and you have laity. You have a following individual and a social piety that we try to live out the biblical gospel and the social gospel and so that kind of that spectrum is one of the things that I love about the United Methodist Church. Well, nine and a half years ago my husband and I sat in the parking lot of a new church start called Faith UMC wondering if they might have something different for us. It was there that I first fell in love with the people of that church and then with the Wesleyan theology that they taught me. It was there that I learned how my faith would propel me out into the world, that I would learn what it means to live an abundant life, salvation here and now and into personal and social holiness. And from there I fell in love with the larger connection of the UMC and became emboldened and encouraged knowing that there were people all around the globe who were sharing in this unique witness. My greatest love about the United Methodist Church is the rich Wesleyan tradition and history of the Methodist Church. It reminds me of a church that was started with a movement not to set itself apart but to go out into the world and do something significant to reach people that aren't being reached. What I love about the United Methodist Church is that from the very beginning it was committed to transforming the world by preaching grace. God's unmerited, unbounded, unconditional grace. Methodists preach a grace that has the power to go before us and behind us, above us and below us and all around us. A grace that has the power to put us in right relationship with God and with each other and a grace that has the power to transform us into disciples of Jesus Christ, to do all the good we can by all the means we can in all the ways we can at all the times we can in all the places we can to all the people we can in every way we can as long as we can. My call story has always been that I've heard God's voice most clearly through the people, through the churches that I've called home that have spoken love into my life that have named gifts in my life that I didn't think I had or wanted but that God was gifting me with anyway and I find continually even in the current ministry context I'm serving in at Pecan Street Mission Indicator, it's the people that I just love. That's what makes the United Methodist Church right. It's not our buildings or our programs or the best worship services we have. It's the people in the community that God has knit together. That's what I love about us. It's well about being a United Methodist and be a part of that family. My hopes for the United Methodist Church is that we can continue to stick to our Wesleyan theology and our understanding of grace that is for all, that we can be focused on mission and serving the needs of the world because we do that incredibly well and that we can continue to be about social justice and be passionate about it and making change in this world. I also one of my hopes for the United Methodist Church is that we can adapt and stay relevant in this culture and continue to reach young people especially because there is a desperate need for this understanding of grace and God's love. I hope to provide a place for people to belong where they can experience community, where they can experience the love of God in tangible and interactive and real ways from now until I'm done, until I'm making retirement videos. One of my big hopes is that we all choose to still practice the three general rules, doing no harm, doing good, staying in love with God. And my hope is that if we can show that even in a time of, you know, radical disagreement that we can still live with each other and love, that that becomes a witness to the world. And my hope is that that will lead to a new revival. My hope is that we will continue offering that unique Wesleyan witness in the world and that we will continue equipping people for their discipleship. Most importantly for me, the story of Jesus saved my life and I will use that life to tell that same story to as many people as I can knowing that it might save theirs too. So my hope for the United Methodist Church is that we together keep telling that story. My hope is that we'll continue the conversation. I know there's a lot of disconnectedness across our denomination right now but I see the need for us to become mapmakers, cartographers, charting across a new territory, a landscape that's completely different than 20, 30, 40 years ago and a need for us to understand that our conversations are going to be the most critical element to us moving forward. I hope that we can recapture the spirit of our roots as a movement that strove bravely and tirelessly against all kinds of resistance to revive the church. That we can once again like John Wesley go into the streets and alleys and bars and prisons of the world to bring the good news of a gospel of grace to those on the margins who feel that the church has forgotten them. My hope is that we might really re-center our hearts and our lives on Jesus which for me particularly means re-center your hearts and our lives on people because it's only through our neighbor that we get to meet Jesus, right? Jesus said, I was a hungry person and you did or did not give me food and I was naked and you did or did not give me clothes and I was in prison and you did or did not visit me, right? Like it's the least of these, it's our neighbors, it's our brothers and sisters that must reveal to us the face of Jesus Christ. I think it's our brothers and sisters, our siblings and the LGBTQ community who we have for far too long turned our backs on and my deepest hope is that we might turn to face one another and that we might see in each other the face of Jesus Christ calling us into deeper community. I plan to create new spaces and ministry by getting outside of the church building by meeting people where they are, meeting people who probably would not be willing to enter into the church but who have a desire to know about God, a God that already knows them and loves them and wants to be in relationship with them and right now specifically I don't know what that looks like but I'm excited to see the ways that God works and am seeking inspiration and vision from the Holy Spirit. So I'm hopeful for new spaces, new faces, new places through the continued work of Urban Camp at First Methodist Church downtown and I'm very hopeful that Urban Camp can continue to reach beyond the walls of the church and create new places for families who might not experience what what community looks like inside the church. We'll find that through Urban Camp. So I work in an intentionally inclusive congregation. At least half our congregation has told me that they come to our church because of the sign out front of our building which says that we that we welcome people of all races, people of all orientations, people of all social and economic situations and so we do really good job at welcoming people but I would like to see us move from welcoming to going out and inviting people to move outside the church. One of the things that we're wanting to do as a church and I'm excited to be working with is reaching out to teens that are LGBTQIA and their families. We're starting to reach out to some of the clubs and organizations in our community to try to reach out and start a little bit dialogue and relationship. The hope is that that's going to take us outside the church rather than just expecting them to come to us. I will create new spaces in ministry as I build new relationships with people along the 380 corridor as I quite literally find new worship and gathering spaces and as I look out in the community to find the places where God is already sparking divine fires and seek to join God in those places as well. To understand that it's not about avoiding the roads we took in the past but about exploring new territory, new places that we haven't yet gone. We have a couple at St. Stephen who live in rural County and over the time that I've been there I think they brought over half of their neighbors to visit the church but it's a 30 minute one-way trip and so most of them don't come back. So I said wouldn't it be easier for me to come out there than all of them to come in here. So we started a house gathering in Hunt County. For us that has meant keeping our vision towards the margins. Folks that have had really terrible experiences with church in the past. People with young kids that feel anxious in the sanctuary because their baby cries and their preschool kids are wrestling around and they don't quite feel at home where they are. They have tough questions that the church has told them they really shouldn't be asking or themselves or the people they love identify as gay or lesbian or bisexual or transgender or part of the queer community or because of their struggles through alcohol and substance abuse and walking the road through recovery they found that like the church has just not been a place for them. I think creating new spaces means always turning our eyes outwards outside of our four walls to ask like who's not here and where's God already working and following God into those places rather than expecting that like we're bringing Jesus to them.