Look to Be Surprised
Our experience of life is largely shaped by our expectations of life.
If our expectation is for things to go poorly, to fall short, to disappoint us, then there is a good possibility that is what we will experience.
If our expectation is for things to go well, to excel, to be at least satisfactory, then there is a good possibility that is what we will experience.
Either way, our perspective tends to paint our reality in appropriate colors. I have been amazed in just this last week, driving around, that the prettiest Christmas lights I am seeing are fall’s very late colors in the middle of a sun-splashed day – bright reds, oranges, and yellows against a lot of still-green trees. I have been surprised.
There are a lot of reasons this year to bring an expectation of dour disappointment to the table. But that is not God’s expectation. The biblical story reminds us again that in the midst of poverty, powerlessness, governmental overreach (Caesar Augustus demands a census of the entire world), a young pregnant woman believes in something better, persists with something better, expects something better, and she is not disappointed. Angels appear to shepherds – the lowest on the food chain – and announce that the good news proclaimed is for THEM. Surprise is the order of the day – something that would come to be Mary’s expectation as she watched her son grow.
As we approach Christmas this year, in spite of the year, what is the expectation you are bringing to the manger? By God’s grace, through faith, as you look at the stars, look to be surprised.
See you in the surprising place this Sunday for our Cantata, Agnus Dei (the Lamb of God).
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor
A Triple-Header Weekend
The NBA touts annually its triple-header Christmas Day basketball games between great teams; the league wants to command your eyeballs all day and night long (as if you didn’t have something else to do that day). I am not sure we can compete with those offerings, but ours do come 10 days sooner. This weekend, December 13–14, our triple-header will have:
Our Gift Market both days, for that last-minute and one-of-a-kind shopping that graces those you love while helping sustain small microbusinesses in developing countries around the world.
Our famously wonderful (and funny) Christmas Pops Concert Sunday night, which has something for everyone of every age, including free giveaways.
Bishop Ruben Saenz, Jr. of our Horizon Texas Conference preaching at both services on Sunday and leading an infant baptism at the 9 a.m. service. It will be Bishop Saenz’s first worship experience at FUMC Plano, and we are honored to have him and his wife, Maye, as our special guests.
I saw on another United Methodist church’s sign: “Thinking about church again? Start here.” I can’t think of a better time and a better place to extend exactly that invitation to someone you know who would feel cared for by your thinking about them. You will be proud you did—especially if they come and find that what you said was indeed true. Love is arriving this weekend and this Christmas, and my experience says that a lot of people are ready for that good news.
Come on—you don’t even have to play basketball!
See you at the triple-header place,
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor
If We Want Change, We Have to Be Open to Changing
I know lots of people who want to see change around them.
I know fewer people who are open to change themselves for that to happen.
This is what makes Mary’s “Yes” to the angel so remarkable.
Then, as now, there was so much desire for change in the economically oppressed and militarily occupied land of Israel. Being a teenage woman only heightened that powerlessness and vulnerability. She was more than a little surprised when the angel told her that the change desired by many was indeed coming. About the child the angel promised her, the angel says, “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:33).
Mary could have said, “No thank you,” or “Yes, we need that, but please find someone else.” Instead, she said, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Mary was open to the change she and millions of others wanted to see for their country and for themselves. Mary’s only qualification was her willingness to be a servant to the change she wanted to see. It was true then; it is true now.
The first choral song I learned in 7th grade was “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” I didn’t appreciate it at the time, but Mrs. Butler — one of my favorite teachers — was the rare Black teacher (and a Christian) in a predominantly white middle school in Houston, Texas, in 1970. She did not just want change in racial relations and respect; she was willing to be a servant to the change she wanted to see. I appreciate now her choice of that song for our mostly white 7th-grade choir to sing as we approached the Christmas season:
“Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.”
See you Sunday at the change place,
Lead Pastor
FUMC Plano
"Give us this day our daily bread …"
We pray it from memory; we pray it without ever needing to look at the words. But how much thought have we given to what we are saying in that clause of our Lord’s Prayer? I think, in this Thanksgiving week, it is worth a moment’s pause.
In the early church’s context, bread was the “staff of life” for the impoverished with whom Jesus’ message of life resonated loudly. You might not have much, but if you had bread, you could subsist; you could get by. So for Jesus to teach his disciples to pray, “Give us this day our daily bread,” he was teaching not just a simple prayer and a simpler diet, but a simpler lifestyle—dependent on God’s grace and one that made room for sharing more with the neighbor in need.
As we gather in abundance this week, might we indeed give thanks for our daily bread—our “enough”—but also for the extra resources that can then be shared beyond ourselves . . . as Jesus always did.
Blessings on you and yours this Thanksgiving week.
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor
This Is How Church Works
Frances Graves and newcomer Morgan Burks sifting compost for the Community Garden.
Kelly Campbell and daughter Emma clearing the fence of vines so people driving on Parker can see the good work happening for the community.
Sun Cochran and Megan Oh (and family) bagging groceries for food-short families at God’s Pantry.
Ruth Roberson and Linda Welch doing the same.
Tim Hopson representing us as District Lay Leader at Charge Conference.
Newcomers Dan, Ariel, and Matthew Hampton sorting clothing donations at Hope Restored Mission.
Kristi and John Boog-Scott and Mike Bowen doing the same and loading heavy equipment for a donation to meet a need in McKinney.
Debbie Ison organizing water and other donations for distribution.
Children and adults coloring placemats for persons – some with children of their own – who are incarcerated at a state prison.
Joyce Craig and a room full of women cutting wrapping paper and creating decorative bags for children at Dooley Elementary to use for gifts they purchase for family and friends.
Twenty men removing pews so that new Sanctuary lighting can be installed – also by in-house volunteer labor.
Scenes like these – all from this past Mission Together Sunday – are a living testimony to who we are: a church that worships, then serves.
“‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you as a stranger and welcome you, or naked and give you clothes to wear? When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’
Then the king will reply to them, ‘I assure you, when you have done it for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you have done it for me.’” — Matthew 25:38–40 (CEB)
This is how church works.
This Sunday, we will burn our mortgage note at both services, celebrating with thanksgiving a now debt-free church that has been doing this for 178 years. I hope you will bring a friend to join in this milestone of faithful service to others and thus to Christ.
Yours ... His,
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor
The Inconvenience of Love
We hear the grumbles.
“I want my usual worship time; 10 o’clock is hard to remember.”
“I want to be heading home by that time.”
“I want to be finishing breakfast at that time.”
“I want to be in my Sunday School class.”
“I want our kids to be in Sunday School.”
What two words are common to these statements? Exactly.
What if, instead of grumbles, we were to hear:
“One 10 o’clock service? I want to see people I don’t get to see!”
“I want to hear our combined choir.”
“I want to wear casual clothes to church.”
“I want to work on a mission project with my Sunday School class.”
“I want to work with my kids on a mission project for others.”
Eleven days before Thanksgiving, we gather for worship as the one body of Christ to be the body of Christ to the world near and far. Or, as I have also heard said, “Mission is not what we do; it’s who we are.” Twice a year, Mission Together imposes on our rhythms; it feels like an inconvenience. But it really is the inconvenience of love.
With you in Christ,
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor
What are We Standing For?
This Sunday comes just two days before Veterans Day when our country pauses and honors all those who serve and have served in our nation’s armed forces. Flags will be out, marches made, and commemorations spoken.
Here at FUMC Plano, we have a proud legacy of service to God and country. Over the years, more than 200 members of our congregation have served in our nation’s military with distinction. On Sunday, we will stand with them in heart, even as we ask those present to stand and be recognized.
It is one day in the church when we can agree to mix “religion and politic.” But, as we stand together. what exactly are they – and we – standing for?
Regardless of service, every enlisted person makes the following oath:
“I, ____________, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.”
So again, what are we standing for?
Are we standing with them to defend the Constitution?
Are we standing with them to defend the rule of law?
Are we standing with them to defend free speech?
Are we standing with them to defend habeas corpus?
Are we standing with them to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same”?
These are the vows our cherished veterans pledged their lives, on behalf of all of us.
It is certainly why I am proud to stand with them.
So help me God.
Lead Pastor
A Beautiful Cloud of Witnesses
Christmas and Easter are wonderful, but my favorite of all services happens on All Saints Sunday — and for two reasons.
Our son Blaine was born on All Saints Day, November 1 — by itself my most treasured witness to how God moves in God’s “kairos” time.
The other reason is we beautifully remember and celebrate how God has moved through the lives of those who have been part of our church family for decades and who now stand in the presence of God with no more tears and no more suffering.
We name them one at a time.
We toll a bell.
We stand in solidarity of memory.
We light candles.
And perhaps most importantly, we kneel at the rail in communion with this cloud of witnesses, for they are very much alive and very much with us in the breaking of the bread and the sharing of the cup together.
I will feel their presence, as much as I feel my son’s bear hug, when we gather as the one body of Christ this Sunday. It is holy ground for me.
On Easter we proclaim, “He is alive.”
On All Saints Sunday we remember they are alive and with us — a beautiful cloud of witnesses.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Lead Pastor
FUMC Plano
“I Love my Church.”
These words moved me when I heard Don Magnus say them last Sunday in a 56-second video that is worth much more than the minute it takes to watch.
He testified to the joy of serving and giving to something you love. It was only fitting that after the 11:00 service, we consecrated our new Birds Nest maintenance building and, in a surprise moment, revealed two commemorative stones with brass plaques affixed to them (Thank you, Dave Gray). One of the stones honors all of those who have served as Yardbirds, beautifying and repairing just about anything that needs it around and inside our church building. The other stone dedicates the new Birds Nest to the founders and leaders of the Yardbirds over the past 35 years: Don Magnus, Bob Bontz, Jim Murrell, and Tom Durdin.
Founding Yardbirds Don Magnus, Bob Bontz, Jim Murrell, and Tom Durdin stand beside the newly dedicated plaques at the Birds Nest maintenance building, honoring 35 years of faithful service.
It was a short but deeply meaningful recognition of this group who love their church—and they represent a host of others in our church family who give and serve with the same spirit.
Last Sunday, we received pledges for more dollars for 2026 ministry than we did on the first Sunday of our stewardship emphasis a year ago. A lot of people brought their “batons”—their Estimates of Giving—and handed them off into big baskets down front while praying at the rail for what God will do through our church next year. We also received gifts last week for our Free to Grow debt elimination campaign. With funds in hand, our remaining debt now stands at about $72,000. In April it was $750,000. It’s what happens when people who “love their church” serve and give with joy.
I am confident that we will be debt-free by Thanksgiving week, November 23, when we are scheduled to burn our mortgage note. I know we can overcome, by the end of the year, the deficit that we, like most churches, face this time of year. I also know that we can fund all that we feel called to do in ministry in 2026. All it requires is for the 600 families who call FUMC Plano their home to say with their heart’s giving, “I love my church.”
And as we’ve witnessed again and again, God is more than gracious to meet our every need.
See you Sunday as we talk about prayer that matters.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor
Wisdom in the Meeting
Biblically, divine wisdom comes to the body when the body meets together:
Jethro advises his son-in-law Moses on how to manage the people (Exodus 18).
Jesus persistently pulled his disciples aside for teaching and practice that strengthened the witness of their doing (e.g., John 6:1–13).
The early church discovered a new way of doing ministry that involved more lay people, expanding the church’s reach (Acts 6).
Since then, the Church—in most of its iterations—has discovered and practiced the power of meeting to discern divine wisdom moving forward:
The Vatican and its dioceses meet.
The Southern Baptist Convention meets.
Lutheran Synods meet.
The United Methodist General and Annual Conferences meet.
In every instance, there is prayer, worship, and thoughtful discussion to discern the Spirit’s leading in a variety of issues the Church faces, both internally and externally, for the sake of Christ’s ministry.
Several years ago, FUMC Plano began holding Town Hall meetings led by our lay leaders to present information and encourage the congregation to speak about the issues we face together. We will hold our next Town Hall Meeting this Sunday, October 19, at 10 a.m. in the Sanctuary. Yes, it conflicts with the Sunday School hour—but the issues are important enough to warrant that shared time. This hour provides us with the best opportunity for broad participation in issues that affect us all.
The chairs of our Missions, Trustees, Finance, Staff-Parish Relations, and Church Council will give brief reports, allowing most of our time to focus on your questions. Handouts will be available, and the meeting will also be livestreamed.
We work to give every voice a voice, because in doing so, we better discern the wisdom of what the Spirit is saying through all of us who make up this body of Christ.
I hope you will attend.
Connecting God and Grace to Self and Community,
Matt Gaston
Lead Pastor