The Connections Band Concert:
Doobie Brothers/Elton John Tribute Show

Saturday, October 4
7 pm, Palmer Hall (Suncreek UMC)

Suncreek will be hosting a concert by the Connections Band on Saturday, October 4th at 7:00 PM in Palmer Hall.  The band is comprised of musicians and ministers from around the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church. The band will be performing the hits of the Doobie Brothers and Elton John.  Desserts will be served. You will not want to miss this wonderful event of great music, fellowship, and delicious food.  During the concert donations will be taken to benefit the ministry of Nothing but Nets. 

It started with some great music. It started with a bunch of ministers. And the combination --like peanut butter and chocolate-- has proved deliciously sweet.

The story of Connections Band is as remarkable as what the band has achieve in its short history. The band started from a chance meeting at a yearly clergy retreat for United Methodist ministers one October.

"I had this incredible room that I'd been given at the retreat," says Eric Folkerth. "I invited people over to hang out one night. This guy with red hair who I'd never met showed up, and we played Dan Fogelberg songs until one in the morning."

The red haired stranger was Rusty King, Minister of Music at Spring Valley UMC in Dallas. The two were joined by Paul Escamilla and John Fleming, whom both had known separately for years.

In the years that followed, Rusty, Paul, Eric, and John would recreate their late-night "jam sessions" at that same October retreat. They were soon joined by Frank Rahm and Ann Willet, and the six are known today as the "founding members" of Connections Band.

After one of their late-night sessions, King came up with a crazy idea. "He just said, 'Hey, why don't we do a Dan Fogelberg Tribute Show,'" Folkerth remembers. "And I thought to myself, 'sounds fantastic to me, but who would come?!'" Turns out, more than 200 people came to the group's first show in March of 2004, and the "magical night" raised almost $2,000 for missions.

It has taken the band to fourteen concerts, and soon-to-be four different "cover shows" of artists like Fogelberg, James Taylor, Carole King, Chicago, Eagles, Doobie Brothers, and Elton John. It has seen the band play before thousands of people, and raise nearly $40,000 for mission work.

None of the almost forty musicians in Connections ever gets paid for a gig. They volunteer countless hours of their time in rehearsal so that money can be raised for this great missional causes.

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Donations Will Benefit The Ministry of Nothing but Nets. 

What do the people of The United Methodist Church, the United Nations Foundation, the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares, Sports Illustrated and VH-1 have in common? The desire to fight one of the world’s most preventable diseases: malaria. And it’s happening through a campaign called Nothing but Nets, designed specifically for you!

Nothing But Nets is aglobal grassroots campaign to save lives by preventing malaria, a leading killer of children in Africa. Malaria claims more than a million lives every year, mostly children. The good news is that malaria can be prevented by sleeping under an insecticide-treated bed net. Bed nets are an important tool in fighting malaria because they create a barrier against mosquitoes at night, when most transmission occurs. Just one bed net can keep an entire family safe from malaria transmission for up to four years!

A $10 donation goes directly toward the purchase, distribution, and education about the proper use of an insecticide-treated bed net. That doesn’t sound like much, right? And what’s more, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will match each donation, net for net. Most people in sub-Saharan Africa live on less than $1 a day and cannot afford a life-saving bed net. The next time you have $10 in your pocket, how will you use it?

 
By answering Jesus’ call to “minister to the least of these who are members of our family,” you can be part of the solution to beat this awful disease and save future generations.

The United Methodist Church has been in mission across Africa for more than 160 years. You, as a future leader of The United Methodist Church and the world, have an opportunity to continue this important tradition and make a difference through Nothing But Nets. And, by getting involved, you might win the opportunity to tour parts of Africa, meet professional NBA athletes and more!

Save a life! Buy a new "Buzzkill" T-shirt benefiting the anti-malaria "Nothing But Nets Campaign." The pumpkin-colored, 50% cotton/50% polyester T-shirts, on sale for $20, feature the message "Malaria kills. Send a net. Save a life." Ten dollars from each T-shirt sale goes directly to purchase and distribute bed nets. Click here for purchase information.