“Spiritual disciplines” are things we do to stay in love with God and grow in faith. They can be things we do alone or together; they can be ways to spend time with God or to serve others. As the people of Sylva First UMC share one of their spiritual disciplines with you each week, we hope it will inspire you to new ways of loving God and growing in faith.
I am Charles Wolfe and my wife Wanda and I have lived in Sylva since 1982, and we have been members of Sylva First Methodist Church since a year or so after we arrived here. Our youngest daughter, Amy, first attended the pre-school our church offered at that time. Through the pre-school we came to know adults who were part of the church, and we soon began attending the church and later became members.
We have two wonderful daughters, Amy and Lori, their great husbands and a total of seven wonderful grandchildren. Amy and her family live in Franklin, and Lori and her family live in Charlotte.
A spiritual discipline that has been very meaningful to me for the last few years is being part of the Men’s Bible study group that meets each Tuesday morning at 6:15 am. We are finally being able to meet again at the church after many months of Zoom meetings. The change back to meeting in person is truly a blessing, and I hope this will help to draw others to our group. This coming together helps me to reflect on Jesus’ words and how they relate to my daily living in terms of my personal life and my business life. However, I must admit that I am not naturally an early morning person, so it takes some effort for me to get out of bed at that time of day. I definitely need the encouragement of the Spirit or a firm push or kick from Wanda most mornings. Sometimes I wonder if that firm push or kick she gives me is a sign that she is one of God’s angels sent to help keep me in line- sort of like Deborah is to Raymond in “Everybody Loves Raymond”. Anyway, I believe that the benefits of being a part of the Bible study is well worth the effort I have to put forth to attend, and I believe is important to me growing in my Christian faith or at least it not becoming a total train wreck.
