Resources on Wingard Family
My first experience in a youth group was leading it. In 1981-82 I served as Youth Director at the Reformed Church in America congregation in Feasterville, Pennsylvania. I was a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. The learning curve was steep. While in high school, I did not attend a youth group. In fact, I was the only student in my Sunday School class back at my home church in Rock Island, Tennessee. Each week my teacher, Barbara Cornett, brought a carefully prepared lesson just for me. She was a model of diligent Christian service. I hope these students benefitted from what I learned from her.
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32 years ago I was the guest preacher at my Uncle John’s church in Water Valley, Mississippi. I cherish the memory of ministering the word of God with him.
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Forty years ago this month, I began my pastoral ministry. In June 1980 I had just finished college and was on my way to Wales, Tennessee. The ten faithful members of Wales Presbyterian Church (PCUS) invited me to become their regular preacher. In August, I became their student pastor and also assisted one of my mentors, Harry Hassall, at three other rural Presbyterian churches. Everyone was patient with me, and I had a memorable and joyful year. The pay wasn’t much. A couple in the church, William Campbell and Ruth Morris, offered me room and board in exchange for slopping their hogs and working their tobacco field. They welcomed me into their home and treated me like family – I’ll never…
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Today is the 75th anniversary of D-Day, the commencement of the Allied invasion of continental Europe. Within a year, Hitler was dead and the Nazi reign of terror over. President Ronald Reagan’s 1984 speech at Normandy marked the 40th anniversary of the invasion. Reagan used the opportunity not only to honor the allied soldiers who fought their way ashore, but also to strengthen NATO’s resolve in the face of threatened Soviet nuclear missile deployments to Eastern Europe. I introduced my high school rhetoric and debate students to this speech as one of the great presidential addresses of the 20th century. I recommend listening to the entire 13-minute speech. My father, George Thomas Wingard, Jr., fought in Europe later in…
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Retirement was not in the vocabulary of my uncle, John Calvin Wingard. Since ‘retiring’ from a lifetime of ministry at age 70, he pastored two churches, one for nineteen years and a second for the remaining three years of his life. Two weeks ago he was out making pastoral visits to his small flock at First Presbyterian Church in Ripley, Tennessee. On Mother’s Day, he drove fifteen miles to do what he did most Sundays for the past 68 years, proclaim God’s word. The next day, one of his sons drove him to Tupelo, Mississippi to visit his oncologist. He was informed that treatments would yield no further benefits. He walked into a hospital without assistance. By the end…
Read MoreFor the next nine weeks, Lynne teaches again one of her favorite books, The Iliad, this time at Manchester Academy. I enjoy the new purchases that crop up around our home. I owe my love of The Iliad to one man, Dr. John Reishman, one of the outstanding literature professors at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. Until his class, I don’t recall reading a work of ancient Greek literature, and, had I made the attempt, the ability to navigate the text would have been sorely lacking. I needed a teacher, and found one in Dr. Reishman. Since then, I have read The Iliad several times in the translations of Fitzgerald, Lattimore, and Fagles, and a very small portion…
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