Tarrytown United Methodist Church

Sunday Worship Services
8:30am // 9:30am // 11:00am
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©2018 TUMC AUSTIN

Preparing for Harvey

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Information, Updates, and How to Help

Emergency response leaders from the Rio Texas Conference are currently meeting to prepare the United Methodist response to Hurricane Harvey.

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Be sure to check their website for updated information and ways you can help. Also, follow their Hurricane Harvey blog or follow them on Facebook and Twitter for the very latest.

Disaster Response Teams

From the Rio Texas Disaster Response Committee

Hurricane Harvey is taking aim at the central Texas coast and is sure to affect our conference. We anticipate needing response teams by early next week, so now is the time to get prepared. Disaster response needs/call outs will be communicated via email and on the Disaster Response Facebook page.

  1. Give to the Rio Texas UMC Disaster Response Fund for immediate and long term response by making a donation onlineor by marking any offering “RIOTX Disaster Response.” TUMC will also be taking a special offering on September.

    Give Online >

  2. Attend Early Response Team training. This day-long training prepares volunteers and is required to participate on the front lines of response and cleanup. We anticipate that affected communities will be requesting ERT teams for weeks or even months after the water recedes and would like to have a large group of trained TUMC members who are ready to respond. The Rio Texas Conference is currently offering trainings on Saturday, Sept. 2 in San Antonio and Saturday, Oct. 7 in Austin. I anticipate additional training dates to be added.

    Signup for the San Antonio training on September 2 >
    Signup for the Austin training on October 7>

If you are already ERT trained and have not been contacted, please email Rachel Wright.

Serving and Sharing

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Your TUMC youth are so excited to have the opportunity to lead you in worship this coming Sunday and share how they saw God through each of our summer service opportunities.

Those service opportunities include our middle school youth who partnered with Blueprint Ministries in San Antonio, high school youth who partnered with CSM: Center for Student Ministries in Boston, and our intergenerational trip which traveled to visit our partners at ZOE in Zimbabwe.

At TUMC we aim to serve our neighbors far and near both by going when we can and by supporting these services as we are able. Through your support, we have been able to send 61 youth and adults to serve neighbors far and near and to be served by those same neighbors. We look forward to seeing you this Sunday and sharing our stories and gratitude with you.

Zac Gilts

Everything Else Will Fall Into Place

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“An expert in the law asked Jesus this question: “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” —Matthew 22:36-40

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This past week, 31 middle school students and adults from Tarrytown United Methodist Church made the journey to San Antonio to partner with Blueprint Ministries. Together we worshiped, learned, and served with Blueprint staff and volunteers from other churches in the area as well as our host families of the homes we were there to improve.

Blueprint Ministries is a well-established organization in San Antonio that has partnered with the city to provide labor and services to homeowners, who—without Blueprint’s help—would be evicted from their homes due to unsafe living conditions. The staff connects with the homeowners and assesses what needs to be done at each house to accommodate a safe living environment. Blueprint figures out the best way to deploy volunteers, like us, and equip them with the tools and skills necessary for the job. Along with physical repairs to the homes, Blueprint also builds relationships with the homeowners and helps connect them to local churches or provide transportation for those who already have a church home.

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As someone who has now served with Blueprint twice, I can say that their mission is clear, and they do an amazing job of equipping students with the right tools, skills, and attitude to properly serve this community. While this involves learning how to be safe and some basic skills instruction, the opportunity to come together for powerful worship every evening is just as important and sets the tone for the heart of everything we do during throughout the week.

Christ taught that the greatest commandment is to love God, and the second is to love others. If we do these two things, everything else will fall into place. There aren’t many people, much less middle school students, who would go out of their way to do manual labor for someone else in the middle of summer, but if we equip them to love God and love others it is amazing what they can do.

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My encouragement to our youth and adults who served with us this past week is the same encouragement that I would offer you. Love God and love others. You will be amazed at how quickly everything else falls into place. Many of us are familiar with this passage, but I would encourage you not to be so familiar that you miss the simplicity of our call as Christians.

Zac Gilts