Leonard Sweet

I wanted to share with all of you this talk given by Dr. Leonard Sweet. This talk that he gave has so much to do with what we are doing with WikiWorship. That is why I thought I would share this with all of you. It definitely is worth your time to watch this.

Caswell Shaw

This is my friend Rev. Caswell Shaw. Caswell was the District Superintendent of the New Bern District when God called me into vocational ministry. He thought it would be a good idea to take a picture of both us --- especially in light of the fact that we are here at the end of Annual Conference. He wanted everyone to know that we stayed the entire time. Thanks again Caswell for all you do to build up the Kingdom of God.

License to Preach

 

I wanted to share with all of you two friends of mine from License to Preach School. On the right you will see Rev. Park Hunter --- he is the Student-Pastor at the New Hope - Purley Charge in Caswell County. In the middle you will see Rev. Mary Frances McClure --- she is the Associate Pastor at Salem United Methodist Church in Fayetteville, NC. We went through License to Preach School together 2 years ago. I am going to be heading back to Roxboro on Saturday. I am looking forward to seeing my wonderful family.

Ron Snider

 

This is Rev. Ron Snider. Ron served Warren's Grove from 1988 - 1991. Ron served Warren's Grove while it was a two-point charge with Lea's Chapel UMC. Ron is serving Glendale Heights United Methodist Church in Durham, NC. Ron is entering his second year of service at Glendale Heights. His wife Katie is working at Duke University Medical Center. They have two children: Emily - 15 (who is pictured with Ron) and Greg - 19. Ron wanted to say hello to everyone at Warren's Grove.

Chuck Plowman

 

This is Rev. Chuck Plowman. He served at Warren's Grove from 1992 - 1996. Chuck was the first Pastor to serve Warren's Grove while it was it's own charge. Chuck is serving Carthage United Methodist Church in Carthage, NC. His wife is the Rev. Sally Plowman and she is serving at Ether United Methodist Church in Montgomery County, NC. Chuck is enjoying his appointment at Carthage UMC and he wanted to say thank you again, to all of Warren's Grove, for the invitation to come and preach Homecoming last fall. He also wanted to say that he misses everyone at Warren's Grove and if Tim Horton will come down to Carthage Chuck will fix him brisket.

Tom Holtsclaw

 

This is the Rev. Tom Holtsclaw. He served Warren's Grove from 1967-1971. At that time Warren's Grove was part of a two point charge with Lea's Chapel. Tom was a Student-Pastor while serving at Warren's Grove and Lea's Chapel. Tom is retired in the North Carolina Annual Conference and at this time he has come out of retirement and is serving as the Senior-Pastor at Aldersgate United Methodist Church in Durham, NC. Tom's wife is Jan and they live in Roxboro, NC. Jan is continuing to volunteer her time at the Person County Museum and with the Person County School system. Tom has accepted an appointment to serve for another year at Aldersgate UMC.

David Blackman

 

This is the Rev. David Blackman. He served at Warren's Grove from 2002 - 2006. His wife is Jackie and they have two children --- Jacob and Joshua. David is serving the Currituck Charge and the Blackman's are living in Grandy, NC. David has been at the Currituck Charge for 2 years and will continue this appointment in July. David is really excited about what God is doing at this appointment. Jackie is now teaching geometry in High School, Jacob is 10 and Joshua is 8. They boys are very involved in sports and are keeping David and Jackie very busy.

Annual Conference

 

Well we got here safe and sound. This is the first day of annual conference and in the picture you can see Martha Caves (left), Virginia Wrenn (center) and Philip Chryst (right). Hopefully I will be running into some previous Warren's Grove Pastors and I will update for you.

The Shack

I just had to share with you all a book I am reading called The Shack. It is a book about a guy who tragically lost his young daughter and then meets God in a very unlikely place and situation. I highly recommend this book to all of you.

Being Saved

The other night I received a great question from a young lady who attends Warren's Grove. She asked me: "What does it mean to be saved?" I thought I would pose that to all of you in the blogosphere. This is the kind of questions that we are looking to gather at WikiWorship. And if this question causes you to think of questions of your own please pose them in the comment section. So, I would like to hear from you on what does it mean to be saved. What do you all think? And, I am on my way to a thing called Annual Conference next week. This is where all kinds of Methodists get together and conference about the business of our Churches. But, I wanted to tell you that I am going to try to get pictures of former Warren's Grove pastors and find out a little information about where their ministry is now. And I will try to post those as I get them. So keep updated next week. Annual Conference begins on Wednesday, June 11th.

What we are doing

Okay, so this is where we are really going to need your help. What we are starting to do is gather questions. Now what I need from you is to click on the word comments below and that will allow you to leave a question. If you see there is already a post there --- that is okay --- you can also post a comment. The kind of questions we are looking for are these: have you ever had a question about life, or for God, or for the Church that you have felt like you haven't received a good answer or you haven't been able to say it out loud? Then what we want to do is hear from you. Because Warren's Grove is trying to find out the questions that real people are asking. And then we are going to gather all the questions that we get and attempt (I emphasize attempt) to answer those questions. But not in some flippant and arrogant way --- we will try to answer them where all of you help us to answer them prayerfully, biblically and in a caring and loving way --- while at the same time speaking truth in love. I am very excited, especially after this last Sunday where I gathered all of those questions from wonderful people that live really close to the Church. You do not have to attach your name to the questions --- so you can be anonymous --- or please attach your name and that will help us when trying to answer your question and praying for you. Thank you for your help.

We did it!

Yesterday I hit the road with WikiWorship. And I would say it was extremely successful. I would say it was so successful that I should have done this a long time ago. I went to about 18 houses and I think I talked to about 10 people. The conversations lasted anywhere from 3 minutes to about 25 minutes. If you haven't figured me out yet --- I like to talk --- so I found it very easy to have conversations with people and I remember one conversation where a person told me they could not believe that a Church was willing to go out like that. I got a whole bunch of questions and I will post them in the days to come, but I wanted to let all of you share in this awesome first endeavor. I am looking forward to the next times that I go out.