Blogs

Church Thermometer and Thermostat

11/11/2020

Recently, I heard a pastor give a message about the difference between a thermostat and a thermometer. The message’s point was that a thermometer tells us the temperature and the thermostat allow us to change the temperature. The audience was encouraged to be a thermostat and not a thermometer. I’ve thought a lot about the pastors’ message. I now wonder if there was more to be said about the temperature gauging metaphors. The mornings are now cooler than they were a couple of ...

Monday Memo: Hitting a Homerun

Terry Walton

11/9/2020

I was thinking... As a child I began my lackluster baseball career in the Forest Park recreation Pee Wee Baseball league. It pains me, as a University of Georgia fan, to tell you my first baseball team was the Yellow Jackets (Yikes!). I hit my one and only homerun on the Yellow Jackets. Please don’t be too impressed because there was no fence and the distance the baseball could roll far between the fielders outstretched the outfielder’s ability to collect the ball and throw me out before my ...

Monday Memo: Silent Ministry

Terry Walton

10/26/2020

Silent Ministry I was thinking... Bishop Joel McDavid once called the public appearance of a church’s property “The Silent Ministry of the Church.” My dad made a point to tell me as I was appointed to my first church and would be living in a parsonage, “Always cut the grass and keep your yard groomed. It is a witness to your congregation and to the community.” He chose different words, but he was saying the same thing as Bishop McDavid… “The Silent Ministry of the Church.” Church signs can ...

Monday Memo: Season of Bunches

Terry Walton

10/19/2020

Season of Bunches I was thinking... I imagine you have heard the saying "things come in bunches" or "stuff happen in threes." Even in my favorite sport, baseball, it has been said by many a coach and player, "hits come in bunches." This leads me to conclude that life is a "bunch of bunches." (How is that for wisdom?) Recently our family has been in a season of bunches. With a dear mother-in-law's death after struggling with Alzheimer's Disease for nearly four years; then a recurrence of ...

October is for Pastor Appreciation

10/13/2020

Can I be honest with you about what it means to be a pastor? Pastoral ministry is a call from God. For the most part, it is a humbling and fantastic call, full of great joys and significant moments in people’s lives: officiating weddings, presiding over funerals, seeing life change for Christ first-hand. But it’s also full of tension: intense conflict, unrealistic expectations (we’re only human, and we can’t meet everyone’s expectations), relational strain, and, at times, soul-aching ...

The MacGyver Way of Seeing

9/30/2020

The MacGyver Way of Seeing Does the name Angus “Mac” MacGyver ring a bell? If you remember 80s television, you might recognize the MacGyver TV series. During the series, MacGyver saw the world around him as one full of possibilities and solutions. He’s assigned an impossible mission (not to be confused with the Tom Cruise franchise) in every episode. Unlike James Bond or James West from the Wild, Wild West, the popular 60s western science fiction action series, MacGyver didn’t have “cool ...

Mind the Gap Between Stuff and Sayings

9/16/2020

Many churches have a mission statement and perhaps even a vision statement. But have you ever wondered why it’s such a challenge for some churches to realize its mission and vision? Often the reason this happens is that the “stuff” of the church (pardon my sophisticated language here), that is, characteristics by the things we see, is different from the “sayings” we speak and hear. On a few occasions, in the pre-COVID-19 world (not with the churches in the Central South District), Dionne ...

On the Journey

8/5/2020

We're living a strange world. I can't believe that the dog days of August are here! School is starting back this month--though some students will have virtual and or in-person opportunities through the district. Please pray for our students, teachers, staff and parents. Surprisingly, August also brings with it a virtual Annual Conference. Yes, that's right, the 2020 Annual Conference Sessions Annual Conference will take place “virtually” on Saturday, August 29. We will be providing detailed ...

Finding A Life's Calling

7/22/2020

Finding a Life’s Calling This year marks 30 years since I graduated from college. I was the first person in my immediate family to go to college. I needed a guidance system to help me navigate through the unfamiliarity of college life. And like most concerned parents of a college student, my mother was only too happy to assist me in any way that she could. For her, this meant continually providing me with information that she believed would help me when I was out on my own. Following this...

What's Next?

7/8/2020

One of the most paralyzing questions that people ask during a transition is: What’s next? When something comes to an end, like a job, or career, marriage, death, or a particular way of life, we attempt to push past the “what’s next?” question, hoping that we can find something new very quickly. We’re very uncomfortable when we can’t chart a course forward. We find ways to compensate and go through the motions. I experienced this firsthand with a third-grader named Patrick, who I was mentoring...