Pastoral note, from Garrett
Each January, our city gathers for the Martin Luther King Jr. March. It’s one of the largest marches in the country. The city does an incredible job with the logistics, making it easy to participate.
For those of us in the church, this is more than a civic moment—it’s an embodied act of faith. Scripture reminds us that faith has always had feet: God’s people are called to walk out of bondage and toward love of neighbor. When we walk together in public, we testify that the gospel belongs not only to our sanctuaries but to the shared life of our city.
We also do so as witnesses to the hopeful dream of beloved community. We walk with our neighbors in the hope of building a nation together where peaceful dissent is protected and diversity is cherished. The events of recent weeks remind us how fragile this vision remains, and that we still have work to do to make the dream a reality.
If you choose to participate, go as an act of prayer. Walk attentively. Notice who is beside you. Trust that God meets us not only in worship, but also in the streets we walk together.
The march is this Monday morning (January 19). We will join with our friends from Antioch Missionary Baptist Church again this year. We will meet at Woodland at 8 a.m. to carpool over to meet with Antioch. You can register here to let us know you’re coming.
Prayer Ministry and Daily Prayer emails are getting an overhaul. To offer an opportunity for daily prayer, we have been sending prayers along with our prayer requests through our prayer ministry emails. To provide clarity, we are going to split Prayer Ministry and Daily Prayer into 2 separate email subscriptions. If you have subscribed to the prayer ministry updates, you will continue to get that. If you want to subscribe to the daily prayer emails to maintain the spiritual discipline of meditative prayer, you will be invited to subscribe to a new email list. If you want to sign up for either email list, send us an email at prayer@woodlandsa.org.
On January 25, we will have our annual State of the Church meeting during the Sunday School hour in Maresh Hall. This is a chance to review our life together in 2025 and look forward to the year ahead.
I’ll be in Waco this week for a Doctor of Ministry class on social ministries to people experiencing poverty. This is my last class in the program. From here on, I ‘just’ have to write a dissertation.
Grace and peace,
Garrett Vickrey
Senior Pastor