Weekly Devotion | March 14, 2024
Reweaving the Connection
I have some beautiful hand-woven handkerchiefs, a stole, and a backpack in my office. I bought them from people I worked with when I was serving as a missionary in the Philippines. The colorful fabrics were woven by hand by women supplementing the family income.
Weaving fabric by hand is not an easy process. Imagine hundreds of 5-foot threads tied to a metal loop on one end. A special stick had grooves to spread each thread out so the shuttle could slide beneath above every other thread. It’s hard to explain. The loom could be worked on for a few hours or stored hanging on the wall. Most houses had a loom hanging with fabric in process.
Sometimes when life was busy, the looms lost their tight weave. The threads became loose and looked tangled and frayed. If weaver wanted to get back to work, he/she had to take time to comb out the twists and knots to get the project going again. Reweaving the fabric tightened up the loose ends.
We are in a process of reweaving our United Methodist Connection. Over the past year or so, the fabric of our connection to other UMC churches has been tattered or even broken off completely. Like weavers attending to a messy loom, our Board of Laity is putting together 4 regional gatherings for North Georgia Conference United Methodist churches. These gatherings are a time for us to come together for fellowship, relationship building, and strengthening our United Methodist identity as disciples of Jesus Christ. We will have worship, pack flood buckets, and break out for individual workshops. Our Bishop, Robin Deese, will be there to preach and answer questions. Registration cost is $20, which goes to purchase items for UMCOR Flood Buckets. Our church, Madison First UMC is hosting the event on March 24th.
Don’t let the fabric of your faith or your church connections become neglected and unwoven. Put March 24th 2:00pm on your calendar for a time to “Re-weave the Connection” with your fellow United Methodist brothers and sisters. Click the link below to register. Register today!
Peace,
zack@madisonfumc.com
