sarafinger

This summer marks my thirtieth year in a ministry role with the United Methodist Church. I started working as a lay staff person at my home church, St. Luke’s UMC in Memphis, in the summer of 1994. I entered seminary in 1997, was commissioned as clergy in 2000, and ordained an Elder in the legacy [...]

For generations who grew up in Memphis from the 1920’s through the early 2000’s, a staple of excitement was the Zippin Pippin roller coaster. This wooden monstrosity was originally located at East End Park, then moved to the Mid-South Fairgrounds, which later became Libertyland. Made of pine, the Pippin would be considered tame by today’s [...]

Did your Wesleyan reflexes finish that phrase for you? If you recognize them as the first half of the final words spoken by John Wesley before he died, you likely know the last four…God is with us. This phrase bubbled up in my consciousness this week. I was writing about our office moving from just [...]

Bishop Tom Stockton served the Virginia Annual Conference in the Southeast Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church starting in 1988. He had previously been appointed to a variety of fruitful congregations in North Carolina, served on numerous high-level conference and denominational boards and committees, and was a Trustee at several institutions of higher learning, including [...]

I met our incoming Bishop while attending the Southeast Jurisdictional Conference held last week at Lake Junaluska, NC. Bishop David Graves has been assigned to the Tennessee-Kentucky Episcopal Area, which will include the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference, the Kentucky Conference, and the Central Appalachian Missionary Conference. He officially begins his four-year tenure on September 1st. My [...]

A Good Balance of Confidence and Humility…                                                                                                     This is a story about three people and their packs. Each had two packs, one carried on the front of their chest and the other on their back. When the first person was asked what was in their packs, they said, "In the sack on my back are [...]

All things new, trustworthy and true…                How much new can you handle? In the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church, there is plenty of newness to go around. New Foundation/Development Fund President/CEO. New Conference Treasurer. New Superintendents in several districts and cohort areas of districts. New pastors arriving in numerous churches. New [...]

Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet and begged him repeatedly, ‘My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.’ So he went with him.  And a large [...]

“A great gale arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to [...]