New preacher takes pulpit today at Central
following the departure of Kirk Brothers, who served the downtown congregation some four years prior to accepting an associate minister’s position in Columbia, Tenn., last fall.
Parish comes to McMinnville after a four-year tenure as preacher at Hartsville Church of Christ. At various times throughout the 1990s, he served congregations in Humbolt, Huntingdon and Yuma, Tennessee, and worked a missionary evangelist in Aruba in 1995.
The new preacher, along with wife, Dana and son, Samuel, will make their home on College Street in a dwelling bequeathed to Central church by the late Minnie (Mrs. Lyman) Turner.
“Tim and his young family come to us highly recommended by everyone who knows them,” said Charles Bogle, one of the elders at Central, which dates its origins to open-air preaching in downtown McMinnville in 1837. “We are delighted and thankful he and Dana accepted our invitation to this work. We eagerly look forward to their fellowship and to the privilege of working with them in the interests of the Lord’s church.”
In the process of selecting their new pulpit minister, the elders reviewed dozens of resum?s and listened to many hours of recorded sermons before inviting applicants to interviews, elder Ken Smith told the congregation. Among factors considered by the elders were doctrinal soundness, adherence to biblical principles, personal character, and a record of effective church service and leadership.
“We are very excited about moving to McMinnville and beginning our work with Central,” said Parish, who had visited the community at the time of his tryout sermon here several weeks ago. “We hope we can develop the kind of relationship that will allow us to be here for many years. From what we have seen, Warren County is a great place to raise a family, and that is extremely important to us.”
Prior to accepting the appointment at Central, Parish served as treasurer and was president-elect of the Hartsville Rotary Club. A volunteer firefighter, he was a member of the Hartsville-Trousdale County Fire Department and conducted classes as a fire safety instructor. He was active in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life and served as the charitable fundraiser’s team recruitment and sponsorship chairman.
Parish earned his MA in New Testament Studies at Freed-Hardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee, in 1999. He completed undergraduate work there in 1998, receiving a bachelor of business administration degree with concentration in agribusiness and major in vocational ministry.
Parish’s Sunday morning sermons will be broadcast on a one-week-delayed basis at 10 a.m. each Sunday on WCPI 91.3 FM. He will also be speaker for Scripture Studies at 8:45 a.m. Monday through Friday on WBMC 960 AM.