Eric Folkerth

This week, Eric again speaks to the controversy between the United Methodist Church and Highland Park UMC in Dallas.
He refers to this second essay, and suggests that TRUST, or lack of it, is a fundamental issue.

Then, Eric turns…

This week, Eric shares about his renewing week in Malibu, California, and also speaks to the break controversy between HPUMC and the United Methodist Church.

This essay is much of the conversation:

Song of the Day: “Rock Me On the…

Today, Eric talks about the scatalogical turn that Jesus takes in a specific Gospel lesson. He’s also interrupted by birds!

Song of the Day: Dan Fogelberg’s “Icarus Ascending.”
In honor of Dan Fogelberg’s birthday.

Here’s my other recorded version of…

This week, Eric compares the message of the Odyssey (the Sirens) to the story of Peter walking on water.

Essay for the week:

Song of the Day:
Eric’s Song: “Voices”
Find it here:

Thank you , , , and many…

Last night, I attended a birthday party for a dear church member and her son’s house. It was a lovely twilight evening, a backyard pool area, a near-Preston Hollow neighborhood, very near my former church….a great night.

And on the…

Beloved Members of Highland Park United Methodist Church,

For those who don’t know me, my name is Eric Folkerth, and I greet you in the name of Christ as pastor of your sister United Methodist Church, Kessler Park United Methodist…

Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

It’s time for what my dear friend, Songwriter KC Clifford, calls “Truthbooking…”

I’m going to start today with an extended retelling of a recent hard night I had, because it so clearly leads straight into an important conversation…

“Don’t look down
Though your heart may be weary
Don’t look down
Though your wings are on fire
Don’t look down
Though the night may seem endless

There’s a reason you’re flying
this fast and this far
Let your faith

This week, I play “show and tell” about my trip to Chicago, and also revisit the pictures I took of our trees in the backyard….reminding us again that “growth” takes time and patience.
We also again talk about the Haitians…

We talk about the Parable of the Mustard Seed…and I share two remarkable pictures of our backyard, thirty years apart.

Essay for the week:

Song of the Week:
”Tell Myself,” unreleased from me.

Thank you…

This week’s Gospel lesson allows me a chance to again say:

You are probably reading the “Parable of the Loaves and Fish” wrong.
You’re probably missing a greater point of whole story.

It is my contention that this section in…

Still catching up!
Coffee on the Porch from July 14th.

Show Notes:

This week’s essay that we discuss is here….thoughts on a memorial for Lorenzo, and the painful familiarity of that moment:

Thank you , , , , , and…

Catching up on Coffee on the Porch Archives.
(Sorry this is a month late!)

Thank you , , , and many others for tuning into my live video! Join me for my next live video in the app.

A short video to illustrate what I wrote in last week’s essay.

Read that here:

I’ve been wanting to create this “How It Started/How It’s Going” picture series for more than a year now. For reasons that weren’t clear in the moment, I felt especially driven to make it happen last week. It…

It happened again, just now. I didn’t mean for it to happen. I just meant to go to the garden to do a little weeding. I wasn’t even thinking about this week’s Gospel lesson, sermons, preaching, teaching…none of that.

In…

Friday night, I went to a prayer vigil, for Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, murdered by ICE1 on the streets of Houston last week. I was honored to give a short opening prayer to the evening.

As we arrived, I exchanged…

Ten years ago tonight, our city was rocked with horrific tragedy: Five Dallas Police were brutally murdered by a lone sniper.

The officers were all part of units dispatched to a large and peaceful downtown protest. The subject of…

During Fourth of July week, my sister posted picture of us three Folkerth children as kids that I had been hunting for weeks. It’s a a black and white picture (because Dad was convinced Black and White would last forever…).

…