From the Pastor (Page 2)
Update: AUGUST 2023
Hey McFarland! Pastor Wayne here! I want to share an update with you on this 10th day of August, 2023. Can you believe that we are already in the month of August? Where has this year gone? I’m not sure. Anyway, there is information that I need to share with you. ** Homecoming ** We will celebrate Homecoming on Sunday, August 27th, 2023. Our preacher will be the Reverend Mickey Rainwater, our new District Superintendent. Mickey will share the message…
Update: June 29, 2023
Hello McFarland! Pastor Wayne here! It is hard to believe that 2023 is half over. It is also hard to believe that July 1 will mark the beginning of my sixth year in service to this congregation. What a time it has been. I want to thank the Reverend Fred Dearing for substituting for me on June 25th. Fred brought a message of hope from the people of South Sudan. If you would like to contribute to the ongoing work…
Update: May 22, 2023
May 22, 2023 Hello McFarland! Pastor Wayne here! I start this update with a note of sadness. Kenneth Hays passed away today following a massive heart attack. I spent time with Dot, her son and daughter-in-law at the hospital. As you can imagine, Dot is in shock, but is O.K. at the moment. Funeral arrangements have yet to be made, but will be handled by Wilson’s Funeral Home in Fort Oglethorpe. I will post to our Facebook group and send…
Update May 6, 2023
We are just finishing up the first week in May. This Sunday, May 7, will be the Fifth Sunday of the Season of Easter. We will gather around the table this Sunday as we celebrate Holy Communion together. We continue with the lectionary sermon series A Living Hope this week with the topic “Like Living Stones.” The scriptures this week are Acts 7:55-60; Psalms 31:1-8, 15-16; 1 Peter 2:2-10; John 14:1-14. Here is a message from Marvin Mills about Sunday…
2023 Annual Conference Hands on Mission Project
We have a hands-on missions project each year for Annual Conference. Once again, this year, the mission project for the Scenic South District is home buckets for the Ishe Anesu Project for Underprivileged Children in Zimbabwe. This is a project that we have been doing for the last few years. This year is adding a couple of elements that we haven’t supplied in the past. Since 2019, we have sponsored 36 buckets each year and we have purchased supplies in…
You Are Welcome Here
On Saturday, April 22, 2023, Ann Russell, McFarland’s lay member of the Holston Annual Conference, and I travelled to Central United Methodist Church in Knoxville to attend a called session of the Annual Conference to consider the request of 264 out of 842 congregations to disaffiliate from the United Methodist Church under paragraph 2553 of the Book of Discipline (our United Methodist Book of Law) which allows churches to leave the United Methodist Church over disagreements of conscience over the…
Holy Week Meditation
Holy Week Meditation and Ritual of Three Anointings from Wayne Cook on Vimeo. With this video, we offer an opportunity for a reflective and meditative worship experience for Holy Week. This experience is offered by permission of the Worship Design Studio ministry of Dr Marsha McFee. I offer it to you. Feel free to pause the video as necessary so that the fullness of the worship experience may be fulfilled in this Holy Week. Holy Week Meditation and Rituals of…
Update: March 3, 2023
Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ in this season of Lent. It is difficult to believe that it is already March and Spring is just around the corner while our plants and trees are already beginning to bloom. This is a time for new life to begin and not only in the Circle of Life that we see in the world around us. It is an exciting time to be in the Church and to be…
What If?
In this time of disaffiliation and turmoil within The United Methodist Church and with the “revival” at Asbury College in Wilmore, Kentucky (and I will admit that I’m skeptical of the event – even though I believe that a movement of the Spirit is possible today as part of God’s prevenient grace wooing us to God, Asbury Seminary (yes, a separate entity from the college, but just across the street) has been ground zero for some of the “stuff” that…
update: December 29, 2022
It is difficult to believe that we are at the end of the year. It seems that 2022 went by so fast even though, at times, it seemed like it would never end. But, with God’s help, we made it through. In review, we lost several folks in the past year. And they will be missed. But we have persevered in our mission to reach out into the community around us to make a difference for persons in need. Thank…
