Hello friends,
Rachel Held Evans died on Saturday. You may not know her. She was 37 years old, married with two young children. Rachel was a writer, smart, and funny. She wrote about her life and her faith journey.
I never met her, but she changed my life.
A few years ago my daughter gave me a book Rachel had written called A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband Master. Rachel had grown up in a conservative Christian family where the Bible was taken literally. She decided to spend a year following all of the Bible's rules about women. During that year when she felt a bit of complaining coming on, she climbed up on the roof. (The bible advises that.) She called her husband “master” until he told her to knock it off. And she met with Jewish women to learn more about Jewish customs. She spent time with Amish women to learn about the simplicity that governed their lives. In the end, she decided that an encounter with the Bible was less about following the rules and more about following God.
Her insights gave a lot of people the freedom to do the same. I was one of those people.
That book was followed by two more books: Searching for Sunday: Loving, Leaving, and Finding the Church and Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again.
Along the way, she was bold and faithful, so committed to God that she was willing to walk away from what she had been raised to believe and walk toward grace. She received lots of criticism but still, she kept on adventuring in faith and sharing her story, always loving, always intelligent and insightful and often funny. She seemed to be fearless, although I am sure she faced her demons too. Even if I never met her, I regarded her as a friend, an ally in a world that often seems difficult to find my way through, someone I always wanted in my life.
With her death, the world seems more silent, less joyous, and less courageous.
I recommend her books. And more than that, I recommend her spirit to you. May we all be so confident in the freedom God gives us to trust God and trust our own hearts.
Blessings,
Pastor Cindy
Pastor Cindy Hickman
West Des Moines United Methodist Church
720 Grand Avenue
West Des Moines Iowa 50265
515-279-0826
Like us on Facebook or visit us at wdmumc.org
On Sundays, we worship at 8:30 am in a traditional way and at 11:00 am in a casual way. We would love to worship with you!
This week at WDMUMC:
Midweek Refuel! Suppers on tonight at 5:30 pm!
Nourish! Young women’s group meets tonight at 6:30 pm. They are reading Girl Wash Your Face. Feel free to drop in and see what all the talk is about!
Dedicating a Habitat House! Saturday, May 11, at 11:00 am we will be dedicating a Habitat House located at 2426 Saylor Road in Des Moines. We built the panels in this house and now they will shelter a family. Come and join in the celebration.
About Background Checks
This summer we will be passing out food in the parks and schools and fighting the hunger in our local community. Volunteers are signing up to help. This will be an exciting project!
We will be handing food out to children. Children are vulnerable and we want to do everything we can to ensure their safety. Here at WDMUMC, we require that anyone who works with children must have a background check. Our Sunday school volunteers, those who volunteer at Hillside Elementary, everyone must have a background check. Churches are generally thought of as safe places and as a result, churches can be targets for people who are looking for opportunities to harm children. Having a blanket policy that everyone who works with children will get a background check serves as a deterrent.
In order to do a background check, we have to gather confidential information. We are all wary of sharing confidential information, but we can’t do the background checks without it. We use a reliable and secure company to carry out our background checks.
We know this is all an extra step to volunteering and it may seem intrusive, but a little inconvenience on our part can make things better for our children.
I am a mom and a grandmother. I know how important it is to keep our children safe. If you have questions, let me know. Pastor Cindy
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