A Farewell from Mike

Dear Union Community:

Moments before first opening our doors, we gathered in prayer and held hands while Awake My Soul played overhead. We prayed that God would awaken the souls of people who walked in our doors...the soul of our neighborhood, and the soul of the church. I had no idea the degree to which Union would awaken my own soul. As I write this letter, my soul runs deep with joy, mourning, excitement, opportunity and especially gratitude. I’m writing to let you know that on June 15th, I will finish my time as Founding Pastor and Executive Director for Union to serve as a Director of Product Management for the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry of the United Methodist Church.

One of the vows Methodist pastors make when we are ordained is not to remain in any one place longer than we should. As Union grows increasingly diverse in every way, it is clear to me that this is an organization that will gladly follow the lead of someone who does not carry so many privileged identities. Furthermore, I’ve long held that in order for Union to remain innovative, it cannot keep a founder for too long. I do not want to stand in the way of the gifts that new leadership and perspective can uniquely offer. Despite the pandemic, Union is more stable than it has ever been. Now is the right time to pass leadership to someone else so that they can lead Union in cultivating new sparks that will set our city on fire in ways that I have never imagined. 

Union’s greatest success stories occur when someone applies the confidence and skills they’ve learned at Union to serve beyond Union’s walls. I have the incredible opportunity to take what I’ve learned at Union and be a part of innovative work that will impact and reimagine ministries across the globe. The emotional and spiritual labor you have done to awake my soul will continue as I serve in new ways through the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. I will do my best to make you proud.

Bishop Mike McKee and our District Superintendent, Debra Hobbs Mason, are working with Union leadership to appoint a new Executive Director and Pastor, effective July 1. I hope to see you out on the lawn this week at A Room for Vincent and at a celebration of our years in ministry together on June 15th at 8pm as a part of the Kuneo worship gathering. You don’t need to be religious to be a part of it. All are welcome. I’d love to sing Home and Awake My Soul with you one last time. 

Peace,

Rev. Mike Baughman

Executive Director & Founding Pastor

Apostles to a New Era of Worship

Seminary Shade

Ashley Sutherland is one of those candidates for ordained ministry who makes me a better pastor and reminds me to follow Jesus closer. She’s super intentional about discipleship. She’s instagram savvy and at-home on-line. She couples fierce intelligence with brave vulnerability. Sometimes it’s a bit annoying when you support someone’s call to ministry and then realize they’re going to be better at leading the church than you. 

Ashley’s devotion to Jesus is real, yet she hasn’t attended worship since the first weeks of Covid 19. After trying several worship gatherings, she closed her computer and went outside. I don’t blame her. I lead a church that embraces creative practices of worship as well as change and yet I think our online worship experiences have only risen above the level of mediocre entertainment once or twice in this long pandemic. 

A Theatrical Parable

I’m not a techno-phobe, nor am I one of those worship purists who corrects pastors who break the bread too early in the communion liturgy. I’m a pastor, but I’m also a theater director who likes to think of myself as an actor even though I can’t memorize lines for shit. My friends and congregants in the performing arts world are struggling from financial poverty as well as creative and community poverty. Despite their desperation, almost none of them are trying to translate their craft to video.

There are exceptions. Very underwhelming exceptions. Some theatre companies have begun releasing online performances. They blow the digital dust off of arecording of One Man, Two Guvnors, American Mariachi or Hamlet and post it online with the pomp and circumstance of a grandparent who just figured out iMovie and wants to show their grandchildren.

Rather than losing myself in the story while watching these recordings, I check my phone and am aghast at myself for doing so. Such behavior is definitely not okay, even for theatre streamed to my room. I watch another ten minutes and then check facebook, leaving buried the browser streaming Hamlet. Neither the acting nor the audience laughter in James Corden’s objectively funny One Man, Two Guv’nors has inspired me to laugh in 35 minutes. “We were way funnier,” I text my friend who starred in a local production with which I was involved.

Slapping live theatre to a digital format is translation without fidelity. It’s a placeholder for those of us who consume and create stage theatre. Live, the subtle interactions between audience and stage are so powerful that a University College of London study reveals the heartbeats of actor and audience sync. Live theatre isn’t even rehearsed without an audience. The director’s primary rehearsal role is to be a voice for the audience until the cast is ready for a house full of people. For thousands of years, theatre has been a way of embodying story with a live audience...not for an audience. Take that live interaction out of the equation and you’re left with a thin echo of what could be.

A hundred years ago, the film industry started to figure out how to take embodied storytelling and put it into a video format. Ghost lights and memories are all that can effectively place-hold theater in our hearts and the theatre world seems to be far more accepting of this reality than the church ever could be.

Placeholder Worship

I have yet to find a church that really nails an online experience of worship—including my own. Following shelter-in-place, all sorts of very well-intentioned church leaders flocked to facebook live, zoom, switcher and a long list of other platforms designed to connect with people at a distance. We bought iPad stands, tinkered with lights and rallied our bands or A/V volunteers to make funny videos (I should show you ours). Many pastors were initially wowed by how many people showed up. Six weeks later, the numbers show a slow decline--just when we’re finally getting the hang of facebook live.

Worship is meant to be an encounter with the presence of God, sacred stories and deep community. For thousands of years, religious communities have developed liturgical cathedrals with powerful patterns of worship. What we forget is that the mighty walls of our liturgical houses are buttressed by a support structure so obvious we forgot it was there--the physically gathered community. Lacking that support structure, our liturgical cathedrals are weak and ineffective, easily swayed by the wind. The media of collective gathering— smelling the same smells, taking the same breaths while singing, giving subtle cues to the pastor that she needs to adjust the timber of her voice while preaching—the media contributes as much to the experience of worship as the acts themselves. Divorcing the media from the act itself casts a helpful, but incomplete reflection of what was intended. As a result, our congregants check their phones, look at other tabs on their browser and send text messages to their friends. 

I’m increasingly feeling like our online covid-19 worship is a placeholder in people’s calendar—a moment of routine so that my people won’t forget what they do in “normal life” on Sunday morning. We are deeply afraid that they might find something else to do that they will want to continue to do after shelter-in-place ends. Ashley Sutherland, again, offered a poignant reminder to me when I was discussing the inadequacy of my church’s worship experience. “The church *has* to offer something categorically different than what people receive in online entertainment or real life “third spaces.” That something different is God and authentic community among a people who share a story.

We are losing more than dollars and cents in offering plates. We are losing ourselves. 

So what do we do?

I think there are two ways forward to consider that I hear precious few people advocating..

Ghost Light

A superstition developed that the ghosts of theatre performed to the light left on stage over night. (Photo Credit: Derrick Collins)

1. Holy Ghost Lights. Most theaters are continuing an old tradition of leaving what’s called a “ghost light” on their stage. Ghost lights started as a safety measure. With changing sets and stages you can literally fall from, darkness transforms theaters into dangerous places. Before turning off the house lights, someone leaves a light on the stage so that whoever comes into the theater next won’t hurt themselves. Recently, Ghost Lights have become an audacious symbol of hope because their very idea is predicated on the assumption that some one will return to the theatre and upon the hope they will once again prepare the stage for show. They are lights in the darkness and the darkness does not overcome them. 

What if churches paused online worship and literally illuminated our sanctuaries with ghost lights until we one day return to tell sacred stories and encounter the presence of God? In the meantime, we can embody those stories with our day-to-day lives by serving our neighbors and protecting our most vulnerable. Our people may long all the more for the chance to worship together and rally to our churches when they open.

2. Reinvent Worship. What if we gathered teams to craft intense experiences of the presence of God, sacred stories and beloved community, but through an online media? They could be facilitated by experts in human-centered design, incorporate you tubers, tik Tok aficionados, theologians, high church sacramentalists, film directors, screen writers, preachers who deliver the word interactively, seminarians, pentecostals and film school students. At least half of them should not be church-attenders. 

Do not think for a second I am saying that worship online is meaningless or ought not be pursued. This is the era of the Holy Spirit who dwells with us regardless of how socially distant we are—a point of which I became all too painfully aware when sick with covid 19 and struggling for breath. Holy Spirit is Holy Ruach is Holy Breath. God is in the very air we breathe whether I’m in a sanctuary or not. We can draw people’s awareness to the Holy Ghost light—but we need to train ourselves to do so in a new way. 

A Cry for Help

Here’s the big problem: nobody’s got time to reinvent worship. Pastors are trying to find old money in couch cushions to keep paying church staff, while struggling to figure out how the damn breakout rooms work on zoom. Congregants are organizing drive-by wedding receptions and making phone call hospital visits to their grandparents. Everyone is  baking our own bread for communion and church staff members are printing out cardboard congregations for funerals where less than ten people can attend. Local churches neither have the time nor the resources to hire a brilliant team to re-imagine worship. We are stuck in the lower rings of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. Help must come from the broader church.

Seminaries. Cancel the classes you were planning for the fall. Seriously. Cancel 25% of them and replace them with one course to be repeated by many groups. The course would start with students walking into a room to find a one-page syllabus in front of them: Break into small groups. Use this stipend to give honorariums to some people who do not go to church, but are experts in relevant fields. Design online worship experiences that are true to the medium. Repeatedly test and improve. I think it’s obvious what your final exam will be. At the end, a researcher will ask what you’ve learned and publish findings as well as links to your worship experiences. Have fun and don’t you dare water anything down or act like this doesn’t matter. The future of the church is in your very capable hands. 

Aunt Lily. How about you put together teams, cover some innovative pastors’ salaries for a bit and hire the right, brilliant people to crack this case? There may be no project more important to the long-term health of the church in the internet age of the Holy Spirit. 

Conference, Diocesan and Judicatory staffs. How about a pause button on zoom calls designed to resource congregations and put together the best-and-brightest to dream out loud about what worship could be? Pry your most creative pastors from their virtual pulpits and get them to do some of this work collaboratively with the right experts at their disposal and without the distractions of day-to-day ministry. Put the young who prophesy and have visions along-side a dash of seasoned leaders who dream dreams. Send retired pastors to cover their churches temporarily. If my twice retired father-in-law can master facebook live, so can the retirees in your area. 

Large Church Pastors. Do whatever you are going to do anyway and, I say this with love, please keep it to yourselves. Your financial resources are so out of touch from the experience of 90% of US churches that what you come up with won’t likely be attainable by anybody else. You are on a financial pedestal and that means you can do *incredible* things for your congregation and community. For you to offer “best practices” will set unattainably high bars for most churches in ways that cause unintentional harm. To borrow from the theatre analogy: regional theater can create amazing experiences, but they will never have Beyonce’s budget to create Beyonce experiences. Y’all are Beyonce. Love it. Don’t accidentally set the expectation for others to be.

The Age of the Spirit

Equity Dallas Actress, Lauren LeBlanc, summarized theatre after closing her last show before the pandemic. (Don’t be afraid to substitute the word “worship” for “theatre” as you read).

"The nature of theatre is that it is ephemeral: beautiful, fleeting, finite. The world can only exist in the room, as it is happening, a contract between the players and spectators. And even when you’re in the room, each performance differs wildly from the one preceding it, following it. It’s not like a rerun of your favorite episode of The Office, even though the lines are the same as the ones said the night before.”

Would that we, equity actors of the church, were so self-aware of our craft and calling as pastors and worship leaders. Her words of theatre summarize embodied worship at its best. Let’s not soil it with translation. Let’s be fruitful and multiply, craft new forms of worship and behold God making all things new—not just for Covid-19 but for a new era of connections across time and space. The film industry started this work over a hundred years ago. We can do it too and the blessings will be abundant.

Those who take up this task will be the apostles of a new era of Holy Ruach for a world struggling to breathe. 

My Wife is Halfway Around the World on Valentine's Day -- we're okay with that.

In order to understand this post, you need to understand one key thing first: my wife is a badass. She speaks truth to power—from bishops to City Councilmembers. You want an example? Here’s what she said to Dallas City Council when their ineffective Not-In-My-Backyard-Do-Little-Homeless-Commission (not their official title) was making paltry recommendations on city policy that would further restrict her church’s ability to care for unsheltered neighbors on the few nights when Dallas, TX is actually cold. 

I worry that many of the proposals [being discussed] come from a Not in My Backyard mentality. I, too, rise to offer Not in My Backyard proposals, but the proposals I would offer are rooted in morality and the faith that comes from Christian scriptures.

This past winter, among the individuals we provided warmth included infants whose mothers were without shelter. Exposed to the elements these children may not have made it through the night. When we open the doors of our church, we proclaim, ‘infants won’t die on the street tonight—not in my back yard.’

When we open the doors of our church we proclaim, ‘people without shelter will not be deprived their right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’ Not in my back yard.

When we open the doors of our church we proclaim, ‘human beings will not be stripped of their dignity just because they’ve been stripped of their financial well-being” Not in my back yard. 

Close the doors of our church to those in need, try to stop my church from following through on the mission appointed to us by God and you’ll have one hell of a fight in your front yard because this city will not deny us the right to religious expression and freedom so that some citizens can shuffle unsheltered persons into far away places and feel a little better about the comforts they enjoy. 

Bad. Ass.

Years ago, Rachel’s heart was broken by the growing world-wide refugee crisis. She led an exploratory team to Lesvos to join relief efforts there. Over the years, their work shifted to Lebanon, a nation swelling with refugees.  Her team launched Safe Spaces, a non-profit that builds schools for refugees, employs refugee teachers and executes a socio-emotional curriculum to help combat the Post Traumatic Stress experienced by almost every refugee child.

Bad. Ass.

As her husband, I can tell you that although she is wired for badass Christian advocacy, it is not easy for her. It’s stressful and frightening and requires that she make herself repeatedly vulnerable to people who can wound and disappoint her. Teddy Roosevelt’s “man in the arena” speech is written into her notebook because critics ring loudly in her ears. Onlookers see her confident call. They don’t see her tears because she HATES it, let me underline that, hates it when people see her cry (I’m sure she hates that I just wrote that publicly). Still, she chooses to perform same-gender marriages when the United Methodist Church prohibits such work and threatens to take away her credentials as a pastor. She knows in her heart that an unjust law is no law at all. Bad ass.

What does this have to do with the title of this post? 

As big as the cost is of all her badassery, the hardest thing for my wife to do is get on a plane and travel halfway around the world to take care of refugees or meet with Methodist delegates in the hope that she can be a part of building a better church. She isn’t afraid to fly—in truth, I think she really enjoys the chance to unplug and watch movies on a tiny screen while talking to no one for 17 hours at a time. Her biggest fear about all of this travel is that somehow her children will think she loves kids halfway around the world more than them because she consistently prioritizes building schools for Syrian and Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and advocating for LGBTQ rights around the globe while her own children face discrimination at home.

We—as in her kids and I—miss her dearly. She gives life and love and joy to all of us. She will be gone more than she is home in the first 5 months of this year, but we have all decided that we are okay with it. 

When she travels across continent and country to build a more inclusive and united church, Rachel isn’t teaching our kids that other people matter more than they do…she is teaching our children that some things matter so much you get on a plane, leave everything behind and do something to address the needs of our fellow human beings. She teaches them that we have a responsibility for the well being of one another no matter what geography or politics may separate. 

And we are all here for it.

My wife is currently in the Philippines, portions of which experienced recent ruin following volcanic eruptions. Because breathing masks are nearly impossible to procure in the Philippines during China’s coronavirus epidemic, United Methodist relief teams are breathing in noxious fumes while helping communities recover. 

This is three of our kids, packing suitcases full of masks for her to bring to United Methodist relief workers in the Philippines.

We are on team Rachel Baughman. This is how we change the world.

Rachel has the skills and connections to make a difference on an international stage that I never could. So I team up with my parents and in-laws to change the world by intentionally spending extra time with our kids while she travels so that she can focus more on her work while she is gone.

Rachel’s congregation and staff step up in her absence from the church building because their values align with hers. They contribute to her world-changing by preaching, visiting the sick, covering administrative duties and running overflow shelters without her direct participation.

Our kids change the world by telling Rachel it’s okay for her to travel and excitedly greet her when she returns, never dreading or acting out when she, once more, gets on a plane. They see the hero that she is and she sees it in their eyes. 

Valentine was sainted because he sacrificed for love.

My wife isn’t here on Valentine’s Day.

As long as she comes back home safely (unlike St. Valentine), we’re okay with that. 

5 THINGS I WISH I’D KNOWN BEFORE OPENING A COFFEE SHOP CHURCH

Our first worship gathering at Union, Christmas morning, 2012.

I’m Rev. Mike Baughman, the founding pastor and Executive Director for Union Coffee, a non-profit coffee shop launched by the United Methodist Church. In 2019, we will turn seven years old.. We get contacted a lot from folks looking for a quick run down of what I wish I’d have known before launching Union so here are my top five in blog form.

ONE - The Coffee Business is HARD

Opening a coffee shop is like writing the great American novel,

everyone thinks it’s a great idea…everyone thinks they can do it, but it’s really fucking hard.

                                                                        -Mary Grieshaber

I remember my rose-colored glasses, tinted by coffee-dream stains from Starbucks “Coffee beans are inexpensive” I thought. “Specialty coffee is expensive. The margins are huge! If Starbucks can do it, so can we!” What I’ve learned is that the margins aren’t nearly what you think they are (especially if you want great coffee). Starbucks, as it turns out, thrives on volume and leveraging capital that you will not have.  Comparing the success of an independent coffee shop to the ease of success that Starbucks has is kind of like saying “Pixar makes movies that make money. I have iMovie, therefore…”

Actually, scratch that comparison. Pixar makes great movies. Starbucks makes terrible coffee and I can prove it to you with math (but that’s a different blog).

Still, the sentiment stands. The coffee business is hard. Quality coffee is an art and financial success in coffee requires equal measures of capital, well-informed decisions and luck.

TWO - Get to work

I really wish that I had spent six months working in a successful, independent coffee shop that produced solid third-wave coffee. Even if I had only done this as a quarter or part-time job, I would’ve learned so much about day-to-day operations that I instead learned slowly on-the-job at Union. Had I done this, I believe that I would’ve had better credibility with donors and granting agencies. Furthermore, I would’ve been connected into a support network of coffee folks and had a better grasp of healthy day-to-day operations which would make me a better supervisor.

Let me be clear: you don’t have to know how to run a coffee shop in order to manage a coffee shop manager. After all, a pastor doesn’t have to know how to play an organ in order to supervise an organist…but it sure does help to know a thing or two about music in order to better collaborate and work together. Working in a coffee shop would’ve given me a language and understanding to make me a better supervisor and make better strategic decisions.

THREE - Hire a Manager

Seminary didn’t teach you to run a coffee shop.

Just because you can exegete a text doesn’t mean you can calculate Cost of Goods Sold.

Just because you know Jesus doesn’t mean you know how to make a latte. My hunch is that Jesus doesn’t know how to make a latte and if he did, he’d make it with sheep or goat’s milk and I am not about that.

Someone actually did give me this advice before opening Union and I’m so glad he did. One of the most common mistakes of failed coffee shop church endeavors were church planters who thought they could plant a church and manage the coffee shop. It just doesn’t work because there aren’t enough hours in a week. The mission will always suffer. Given the choice between inviting people to worship (or even preparing a sermon) and ordering cups so that you don’t run out, 99/100 people are going to order cups.

Your job is to pastor people and support a manager.

Let the manager manage.

FOUR - Don’t be an underpants gnome!

One of the biggest mistakes I see church-run coffee shops make is failing to develop a comprehensive strategy for how their coffee shop feeds into and fuels the mission of the church. Far too many churches do, what I like to call, under-pants-gnoming.

In the first episode of South Park, the town was plagued by underpants theft. (I clearly only watch high-brow television). As it turns out, there were gnomes stealing all of the underpants. When asked why, they said…

Step 1: Steal underpants

Step 3: profit.

At no point could they articulate step two.

Churches have done this for decades with pre-schools, thrift shops and now coffee shops. They build a thing and just assume because they have it, their mission will be accomplished.

One of the things that Union has done best is develop an intentional strategy so that people coming in to our shop helps us accomplish our mission. This strategy has developed over time, but now we have measurable ministry impact that correlates directly to coffee shop operations.

Any church enterprise should go through a rigorous process of developing a theory of change. This is one of my personal passion projects. Feel free to email me ( mike@uniondallas.org ) to know more.

FIVE - Top Five Lists will Not Make your Coffeeshop Church Successful

Union is contacted on a regular basis with people asking for a quick phone call to ask questions and learn more about our experiences. While I applaud the desire to research and learn from the experiences of others, the reality is that running a coffee and running a church are both very complicated and significant endeavors. When Union first started, we didn’t really have many successful models to follow. Here’s the good news: there are now people to guide you through this process.

I highly recommend that churches who want to launch a coffee shop consult with people who have actually done that work. Union is beginning to offer these services, but we are not the only ones. Spending some money on a consultant in this case will save a LOT of money down the road. Learn from the successes and failures of other churches who have learned “the hard way.”

Mike

Our first ever latte with two of Union’s first baristas!

Curious about sunday spread? Our worship gathering origin Story.

The Beginning of Sunday Spread

Sunday Spread, Union’s worship gathering, began to take root in the summer of 2016 during an uncomfortable transition. Both Dallas, as a city, and Union as a coffee shop had something brewing. Union’s founding community curator, Mike Baughman noticed God’s work in this moment, and though it didn’t feel good, it could be good for Union and Dallas.

Making an Opportunity in a Transition

As a response, Mike formed discussion groups at Union. Baranda Fermin, Sunday Spread’s founding community curator, accepted Mike’s invitation in 2012 and has loved watching Union’s mission and theory of change develop ever since. Baranda began participating in several group discussions with other Union lovers and members over breakfast tacos about what was next.

Union Community Creates #BrunchChurch

With the support of Path 1 from the North Texas UMC Conference’s Center for Church Development, the worship planning team officially began the design of the initial Brunch Church in July of 2018. Sunday Spread, still affectionately known as #BrunchChurch, launched its test gatherings in the fall of 2018. Eventually, the UMC Conference along with its New Faces, New Spaces program officially recognized Sunday Spread in the spring of 2019.

The Meaning of Sunday Spread

In summary, the Sunday Spread worship community centers around brunch and poetry for boundary pushers and change-makers in the city of Dallas. We gather every Sunday afternoon at 1:30 PM for community, connection and discussion. Also, on the first Sunday of every month we gather for music, worship and BRUNCH of course!

Many of our community members use Sunday Spread as the primary worship experience. Others participate as an addition to their spiritual rhythm, a space they go to for refreshing and connecting with like-spirited folks. Since they're often the ones pushing the boundaries of inclusivity and diversity in their regular worshipping communities Sunday Spread offers a communal shared space.

We all feel a deep urge, a calling, that God has put within each of us a vision for how Dallas can be greater -- more inclusive, more equitable, more just. Many of us believe we can't do that without God, and for better or worse we know we can’t do that without each other. God is ever-present and continuously inviting us to the table -- together. We look forward to meeting each other around the table every week because we know the work of changing Dallas for the better feels a bit easier when we have food and mimosas as a part of the equation.

Join Us at Sunday Spread

We believe that hard work protects the best parts of Dallas. Additionally, that work will change the aspects that don’t truly reflect the Divine spark in each of us within our city, our churches, our neighborhoods, our relationships, and ourselves. We believe that Jesus would want us to do this work together. As a result, we meet for this reason. We come together and share this amazing spread because of this belief. To support the core of our community and find ways to move forward together – as our logo the Siamese Crocodile displays.

So, welcome to Sunday Spread, Dallas's inclusive brunch church where we believe that change-making should light us up, not burn us out. We believe community can lighten our burden, not wear us down. Sanctuary has never tasted this Sweet.

For more information, click here.

Sunday Spread: Sanctuary Never Tasted So Sweet

Sunday Spread

Join us. Share with us.

Dallas is a place of innovative change, driven by amazingly visionary and hardworking folks; and, at Union Coffee we are proud to have fueled the work of these visionaries with coffee and community for over 6 years. As Union grew to articulate a theory of change focused on developing leaders, we began to dream. What if we, Union, started a brunch worship gathering to empower and encourage leaders for our city?

Sunday Spread emerged from these musings. Since the fall of 2017 we have talked with some of the dynamic leaders, activists, advocates, entrepreneurs, coffee drinkers and change connoisseurs of Dallas to curate a worship experience chocked full of all things Dallas—brunch, blues, engaging discussion, Jesus and good freaking coffee.

On the first and second Sunday, we gather at Checkered Past Winery in the Cedars. We listen to one another, eat well, share our challenges, hear what Jesus meant when he preached about changing people and systems, and jam to bluesy hymns as we refresh ourselves for the hard work of pushing boundaries. Sunday Spread is a place where people and things that seem antithetical come together in joy and truth — even if only briefly. 

We’ve got the bourgeoise practice of brunch coupled with the soulful earthiness of blues...the vulnerability of deep honest discussion among friends with the communal liturgical performance of worship...the comfort of small groups with the support of corporate worship...the power of change makers at the edges of social innovation with the wisdom of a deeply connected community.  

Many of us at Sunday Spread also worship / serve within other faith communities, but twice a month we gather together to share our challenges and perspectives, refuel our creative hearts for the hard work of change in our city, our organizations, our neighborhoods, and the people we know leading them.

So, join us, 10:45 AM the first and second Sunday of every month at Checkered Past Winery.

Sanctuary never tasted so sweet.

---

Meet Our New Food Truck Manager!

Meet Scott, our new Food Truck Manager! Follow our truck on Facebook and Instagram @unionfoodtruck to see where he’ll be!

Scott has spent most of his life in the Dallas area, apart from the five years living in Lubbock where he attended Texas Tech University (Wreck 'Em!). Scott has been involved with the Union community for several years where he has served on the Kuneo planning team and in the band, The Misfit Whatevers. With his love for coffee, people and Dallas, Scott is ready to take Union's mission and core values on the road with the Union Food Truck! In his spare time he can found making music, attending concerts, and seeing as many movies as possible. He also has a black lab named Rookie who is the sweetest pup you will ever meet. 

Thank you! North Texas Giving Day Results

To all of you: our community, our supporters, our sponsors, coffee lovers and Divine spark cultivators, thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping us make North Texas Giving Day a success! 

It was our most successful fundraising day in Union history.
176 Donors (about 40 more than last year which is 30% growth)
$97,393 which is more than double what we raised last year!

We were in the top 2% of ALL NTGD non profits and among Medium-sized non profits, we had the sixth highest giving level.

North Texas Giving Day rolled out a personal FUNdraiser page option where people could enlist their friends to give and track those donations. Katie Newsome raised over $10,000 putting her in the TOP FOUR personal fundraisers!

Thank you to our friends at Christ's Foundry, Wesley Rankin Community Center, Junior Players, Big Thought, Window to the Wild, and Bridge Lacrosse for being part of our challenges to raise awareness for North Texas Giving Day. (You can watch all the challenge videos again here!)

Please enjoy some pictures from the week!

Ramping up for the Live Union Awards Show!

We’ve got some crazy, exciting things on the horizon! In the next couple of months, we will roll out the Union Food & Coffee Truck to begin serving the best coffee and breakfast sandwiches in Dallas. We are also excited to be participating in the tenth anniversary of North Texas Giving Day on September 20th and have a fantastic lineup of fun events planned. What kind of fun, you ask?

<drum roll, please>

The first ever Live Union Awards Show! <insert audible gasp here> You are invited to purchase tickets and tables for our big event on September 13th at 7:00pm. The night will feature live music, stories, delicious Tex-mex, awards and red carpet pictures as well as an outdoor reception with hardhat tours of our new location and food truck. If you’d like to organize a table or purchase a ticket, click the big orange button below. Reserve your spot quickly because space is limited to 75 people. 

For the tenth anniversary of North Texas Giving Day, Communities Foundation of Texas is encouraging ten days of giving. We’re lining up fun events on at least five of them so that you can connect with the most generous coffee shop in Dallas- for more information, check out the lineup on our North Texas Giving Day Page. Our goal is to raise $100,000 in ten days and we are confident that we can do it with your help. 

We have set this goal so that Union can continue to raise leaders in the city of Dallas who go on to change the world. I recently received an email from one of our former board members. After moving to New York, she recently started attending one of the oldest United Methodist Churches in the world- only to find that roughly 15-20 people showed up in worship on any given week. Half of them each week are visitors. Few of the visitors return. After approaching the pastor about the church’s enormous potential, she is now leading conversations with church and community members. Their goal is to revitalize this church that once gave life to a movement for social justice and the gospel. The closing words of her email — “I’m doing this because Union showed me how.”

Because of your generosity and leadership, our former board member is able to step up confidently and breath new life and ideas into her church. You are playing a crucial role in shaping millennials who will shape our world. I hope to see you at one of our North Texas Giving Day events.  

Meet Our New Community Curator for Kuneo!

Emily was born and raised around Corpus Christi but has called Dallas home for the past several years. She studied Historical Studies and Gender Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas where she helped start the first inclusive campus ministry. She describes herself as a starter, but whether or not she is starting something new, she has always had a passion for learning. You will often times find her learning about people’s stories, reading a book, or doing something that will help her see a new perspective of the world. She is a huge geek and loves a great adventure every now and then. 

Meet Our New Community Curator for Studio!

Sinclair Freeman is a native Texan and current college student. Before joining Union staff, they served on the Studio Planning Team for three years and taught preschool for four. In addition to working for Union, Sinclair also serves as the Director of Community Outreach at Oak Lawn United Methodist Church.

In their free time, Sinclair loves to read thick books, play arcade games, and go to the gym.

Meet Our New Community Curator for The Spread!

Meet Baranda Fermin! 

Baranda is an accomplished nonprofit leader with experience in operations, training, community development, and research. She has a gift for seeing long range patterns and developing visions, yet her first love is writing. She has numerous published acticles including those in Social Forces, College & University, Better Homes & Gardens, and her book of prayers and prose published in 2017, For Our Boys: A Mother's Prayers. She makes a living doing strategic development and capacity building, but makes life beautiful by using words to share the stories our lives. She holds a PhD in Sociology from Michigan State University; a master’s in Human Development from Teachers College, Columbia University; and a bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education from The University of Oklahoma. Her favorite things on earth are tacos and her son, Montgomery James.