everyone belongs
worship with us sundays at 10 am
and on the 1st, 3rd & 5th saturdays at 7 pm
diverse
we welcome all diversity
inclusive
we are inclusive to all
affirming
we affirm LGBTQ+ people
safe
we are a safe place for all
But do we get HIM?
Many of you are familiar with the “He Gets Us” campaign and its premise that Jesus understands all of our frailties, fears, faults, and dysfunction. I think they got that right.
But in other ways, I think they’ve missed the mark.
The people originally behind the multimillion-dollar campaign drew clear and dangerous lines around those people that they don’t think Jesus gets, and their exclusion included the LGBTQ+ community. If there is one thing I’m certain that Jesus does NOT get, it’s exclusion and judgment.
At upRising, we know that God loves us, and yes, gets us, and we believe that our faithful response to God‘s love is to love God and our neighbors well. It’s easy to get discouraged these days by all that’s happening around us, so we lean on God and each other to help us live with more trust, joy, hope, and faith.
We know the church gets lots of things wrong, but we’re trying to be a different kind of church. We take seriously the invitation to follow Jesus, and we believe that the Bible, when read through the lens of love, has a lot to teach us and a lot of hope to offer us.
If you’d like to learn more about us, please send me an email, check out the rest of our website and our FaceBook page, or visit us for Saturday or Sunday worship.
Always in Hope,
Rev. Karen Woodworth
Sr. Pastor
karen.woodworth@uprisingaustin.org
“when jesus said ‘love your neighbor’ he knew that your neighbor would look, act, believe, and love differently than you. that’s kind of the whole point.”
– toby mac
“the prophetic tasks of the church are to: tell the truth in a society that lives in an illusion, grieve in a society that practices denial, and express hope in a society that lives in despair.”
– walter brueggemann
“we draw people to christ not by loudly discrediting what they believe, nor by telling them how wrong they are and how right we are, but by showing them a light that is so lovely they want, with all their hearts, to know the source of it.”
– madeleine l’engle