Our small but mighty team departed for Dallas this morning! After a beautiful journey through Kansas and Oklahoma, we finally arrived at Tyler Street United Methodist and our home for the week – Connect to the Kingdom (C2K).  C2K is an inner-city service and retreat center that provides serve trip programming, connecting participants to the community through service and partnership, and to Christ using work as worship.

Our first adventure was to explore the beautiful, historic church building with Rev. Jamie Nelson, the executive director of C2K.

For over 100 years, Tyler Street UMC has served the surrounding Oak Cliff neighborhood with worship, service and space for the community to gather. We climbed many flights of stairs, marveled over the large pipe organ and ooo’ed and ahhh’ed over the new contemporary worship space.

Back at the C2K building across the street from the sanctuary, Rev. Jamie gave us a rundown of the various places we will be serving during our time in Dallas. There are so many wonderful opportunities, and we are looking forward to the stories we will be able to share throughout the week!

After dinner, we explored the nearby Bishop Arts District and took in a beautiful Texas evening. This small shopping and entertainment district is a great example of the community and businesses working together to revitalize and beautify an area. And it’s full of great restaurants! Future serve teams and Dallas visitors should definitely put Emporium Pies on their to-do list.

We wrapped up the night with a devotional, a little study of the enneagram and this passage from Ezekiel:

37 The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. 2 He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. 3 He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”

May God show us this week the miracle of dry bones finding new life.

– Lindsey