Eric Folkerth is a minister, musician, author and blogger.
He is Senior Pastor of Kessler Park UMC United Methodist Church in Dallas, Texas. Previously, he was pastor at Northaven UMC in Dallas for seventeen years.
Eric loves to write on topics of spirituality, social justice, music/art and politics. The entries on this blog reflect that diversity of interests.
His passion for social justice goes beyond mere words. Eric was arrested at the White House, defending immigrants and “The Dreamers;” and he’s officiated at same sex weddings.
Eric was the 2017 recipient of the prestigeous Kuchling Humanitarian Award from Dallas’ Black Tie Dinner. (Human Rights Campaign)
Eric has led or co-led hundreds of persons on mission trips to build houses and bring medical care around the globe, to places such as Mexico, Haiti, Russia, Guatemala, and Nepal. He is proud of have shephereded Highland Park UMC's construction of ten Habitat for Humanity homes, (and one Community Center) and helped forge an alliance with Habitat that led to the construction of 100 homes in Dallas, housing thousands of people.
His wife, Justice Dennise Garcia, has 20 years experience as a state district judge and appelate justice in North Texas.
First elected in 2004, she was the first Latina ever elected to a Dallas County state district bench, and she she left that position whe was the longest currently serving district judge.
In 2020 Dennise Garcia was a elected as a Justice of the 5th District Court of Appeals for Texas. She is currently running to be Chief of the 5th District Court of Appeals in the 2024 cycle.
They have the world’s best daughter, Maria, who is a practicing professional counselor in Dallas.
Find links to Eric’s music-related websites, at the top of this site’s navigation menu.
And now, we exhale.At least, I do. Now, except for a few more tiny “jots,” the harm is fully gone. The Original Sin of the United Methodist Discipline regarding human sexuality, the word “Incompatible,” is gone.Everywhere from our polity and law, now. The margin was 76%, and included an amendment that came from an African […]
I am still holding my breath. It’s probably my age.It’s definitely my PTSD. What is happening at General Conference is truly headspinning and filled with such joy for our FUTURE.But there is one final sin of the PAST, yet to go. I’m still holding my breath for the removal of our Social Principles’ “Incompatibility Clause,” […]
I’m going to update this blog post each day during the 2024 General Conference, as a way of keeping folks informed, and offering my own view as to what’s happening. Some quick background, before we get started…Feel free to scroll past this lenthy opening part, if you feel you already know enough about United Methodism.But […]
There are as many as 100 International Delegates not at United Methodist General Conference this year, many of whom are from Africa. This has caused many questions. Allegations have been made that General Conference failed to communicate with them quickly, or the American government failed to issue visas quickly. Calls have been made to investigate. […]
General Conference starts today, and I am thinking about this song and what might happen these next few weeks. I don’t think it’s an accident that I was introduced to this song by clergywomen colleagues. We were all sitting around a fire pit on a clergy retreat two years ago (I had my guitar…) when several […]
This week, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church will begin in Charlotte, North Carolina. This will be the first “regular” General Conference since 2016. I thought I would put down a few thoughts ahead of this potentially momentous week for the new United Methodist Church. These will be a combination of personal reflections […]
Frederick Buechner once described “Prayer” in a way that leaps to my mind this week, in these days after our communal experience of the Eclipse. Buechner wrote: “We all pray whether we think of it as praying or not. The odd silence we fall into when something very beautiful is happening, or something very good […]
These days after a solar eclipse are probably a good time to remind ourselves of this extended quote from St. Augustine of Hippo.(picture taken by me during “totality”) St. Augustine was a wordy writer, so I’ve edited it down a bit…and it still runs long. But it’s an important word for all of us who […]
Increasingly, I am convinced the opposite of “faith” is not “doubt,” but “fear.” This is because the deepest level of “faith” is not “belief,” but “trust;” and the opposite of “trust/faith” is “fear/anxiety.” Instead of faith’s opposite, doubt is a part of the journey of faith. Skepticism is, or should be, embraced as how we […]
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