Rev. Bill Jackson is a Georgia native who was raised in the Atlanta area. He grew up attending Atlanta First United Methodist Church and here is where he met his wife Jo. Bill graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1970 and graduated from Candler School of Theology in 1982. Jo and he have been married for 39 years and have 2 grown children and 5 grandchildren. Bill has served in the North Georgia Conference for 28 years and has had churches in the Athens-Elberton District, Griffin District and now the Northwest District. Bill’s focus is the spiritual development of his congregation through worship, prayer, Bible study, and mission service. Bill and Jo Jackson have been our pastoral family since 2007.
Pastor’s Paragraph
A Peaceful Life
In our world today, it is difficult to find time for silence and to be alone with God. We are consumed with static noise, and things to do.
As I was doing my morning devotional reading one day, I read Psalm 62:5 “My soul, wait in silence for God only, for my hope is from Him.” A. W. Tozer said, “The remedy for distractions is the same now as it was in earlier and simpler times: prayer, meditation and the cultivation of the inner life.”
My hope is that our church will spend more of our day in praying, meditating on our Heavenly Father. If you are to seek a more peaceful life, then you must lead a prayerful life. Think on this prayer entitled “I Want to Stop Running”.
Eternal God, you are a song amid silence, a voice out of quietness,
a light out of darkness, a presence in the emptiness, a coming out of the void.
You are all of these things and more. You are mystery that
Encompasses meaning, meaning that penetrates mystery.
You are God, I am man.
I strut and brag. I put down my fellows and bluster out
assertions of my achievements.
And then something happens: I wonder who I am, and if I matter.
Night falls, I am alone in the dark and afraid.
Someone dies, I feel so powerless.
A child is born, I am touched by the miracle of new life.
At such moments I pause … to listen for a song amid silence,
a voice out of stillness, to look for a light out of darkness.
I want to feel a Presence in the emptiness. I find myself reaching for a hand.
Oftentimes, the feeling passes quickly, and I am on the run again:
success to achieve, money to make.
O Lord, you have to catch me on the run most of the time.
I am too busy to stop, too important to pause for contemplation.
I hold up too big a section of the sky to sit down and meditate.
But even on the run, an occasional flicker of doubt assails me,
And I suspect I may not be as important to the world as I think I am.
Jesus said each of us is important to you.
It is as if every hair of our heads were numbered.
How can that be?
But in the hope that it is so, I would stop running, stop shouting, and be myself.
Let me be still now.
Let me be calm.
Let me rest upon the faith that you are, God, and I need not be afraid. Amen.
-from A Book of Uncommon Prayer by Kenneth G. Phifer
My hope is that our church will spend more of our day in praying, meditating on our Heavenly Father.
Bill Jackson
