Bishop Wills to preach here Sept. 21

Our Bishop, Dick Wills, will preach at Sango on Sept. 21. However, he will preach at one service, not two. Sango’s witness team will recommend to the church council on June 15 whether we should hold just one, combined service that day. If we conduct both services, the bishop will preach only at 11. We’ll let you know what the council decides.

I have asked Bishop Wills to preach because he once asked a group of ministers, including me, to imagine that the legendary blues guitarist, B. B. King, moved in next door to my house. Every afternoon B.B. would walk onto his patio and play his famed guitar, Lucille, for an hour. Then imagine, said the bishop, that after a few days you got up the nerve to ask B.B. to teach you to play guitar.

B.B. agrees, so for the next year you spend an hour every day taking guitar lessons from B.B. King. At the end of the year you go to a big family reunion and one evening you take out your guitar and tell everyone you want to play a couple of pieces. Your relatives may scoff - when did you every learn to play guitar? - but they politely assent to your impending embarrassment and wait with not-very-high expectations for you to begin.

But your playing simply astounds them. When you are done, there is a short silence in the room, then your cousin exclaims, “Wow! You sound just like B.B. King!”

And why wouldn’t you? After all, you’ve spent the last year learning guitar from the King of Blues himself, in person.

What would it take for someone to say about each of us when we speak, “Man, you sound just like Jesus?” Or, “you act just like Jesus?”

Would it not take time spent with Jesus, being instructed by him personally? How do we do that?

Bishop Wills knows how to do that. So please come to church on Sept. 21 to hear him explain.

Moving on, please remember that June 22 is FRAN Sunday, a day we wish to specially welcome your Friends, Relatives, Acquaintances and Neighbors to our church. Worship services will take place as usual that day, as will the nursery and children’s Sunday School. We are asking all adults and youth to gather in the CLC during the Sunday School hour for fellowship and to welcome newcomers to our church. If your group has a display (such as the ones used on Anniversary Sunday), please set it up in the CLC.

Another thing I wish to emphasize is the Rev. Loyd Mabry’s preaching and teaching on July 20 and 27. Loyd is the Tenn. Conference’s director of connectional ministries and church development, as well as a former district superintendent. His subject will be discovering our spiritual gifts. He will lead a discovery workshop on the afternoon of both July 20 and 27. Please note that this is one workshop conducted in two sessions. The discovery process requires attending both sessions. Please make this workshop your priority for those days!