Address: 2100 Highway 150
Floyds Knobs, Indiana 47119
Phone: 812.944.2570
Email: wesley@wesleychapel.org
O U R C H U R C H
We are a church family rooted in Christ and growing in grace.
At Wesley Chapel, it is our mission to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We do this by focusing on four areas: Worship, Faith Development, Serving, and Generosity. We live together as people of faith to grow as disciples in each of these four areas.
W H A T W E D O
Our Mission
Serve the Church
When we serve we are being like Jesus. Jesus calls us to serve within our faith community so that we can grow in our faith and be equipped to go into the world to share the love of God with all people. The primary areas of Serve Here are Hospitality and Food Service. Serving at Wesley Chapel also includes other ministry areas such as Worship, Faith Development, and Facility Team just to name a few. There are always opportunities to serve and we would love to have you connected to Wesley Chapel through service.
Serve the City
We believe serving those around us is central to growing in our relationship with God. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we serve our local communities in Southern Indiana.
Serve the World
We are a church on mission to go into the world and share the hope of Jesus. Through local and global ministry partnerships, we are working diligently to be the hands and feet of God.
New Here?
Join us for worship on Sundays at 8:30 am or 11:00 am. Our campus is located in the heart of Floyd County, Indiana. No matter who you are, or where you’ve been, we welcome you with open arms.
M I S S I O N
We are traveling this journey of faith together, developing the character of Jesus within, and sharing the love of God with our community.
Tony Alstott
Lead Pastor
L E A D E R S H I P
Our Team
Tony Alstott
Lead Pastor
Cory Feuerbacher
Director of Worship +
Director of 20s/30s Ministry
Becky Perkins
Director of Faith
Peter Williams
Associate Pastor
In charge of Youth and Mission
C H U R C H M E D I A
Latest Sermon Series
W E S L E Y C H A P E L B L O G
Recent Articles
05
Nov '20
Tattoos vs Real Fears
05
Nov '20
Written by Rhonda Alstott
Some moments are etched in your memory like they happened just yesterday. One such memory for me is the day I found out that my oldest child had gotten a tattoo. This story is hilarious to me at this point in my parenting, but it cut deep at the moment. It was the beginning of some of my unraveling. God just has to do that with us sometimes when He needs to show us just how far off base we have gotten. I had 20 of my closest friends sitting in my living room set to play our monthly bunco games. Ahnya, in her sophomore year at Indiana State, stopped by to eat and say hello and play with her little sister Mary. My friends all asked how things were going and one innocently asked, “Got any tattoos yet?”
The room grew silent. See this mother had always said in the most authoritative way that any child of hers had to move out if they ever got a tattoo. Why? I had heard another church mom set this boundary and I had respect for this church mom and adopted the same boundary, never stopping to ask why.
Ahnya says “ummmm yeah” and the room broke out in chuckles. I was in total shock. Ahnya went on to describe her tattoo. I was speechless.
Now my authority was in question and not only that, but my logic was coming into question. My safe reality I had created was being chipped away as the conversation continued. Some of my friends shared about their kids’ tattoos. Some of my friends shared about their tattoos. I was left speechless.
I did not kick Ahnya out as I had always threatened and since then I’ve lost count of how many tattoos my adult children have. Same with my friends. I have learned though that most have very personal and meaningful stories behind them, some even spiritual. What I had to look at is why I would have such a crazy rule to begin with. Leviticus 19:28 is the only scripture that comes to mind about tattoos, but that’s the old covenant and I can’t even hang my hat on that. I can only guess that I made the rule because no child of mine was gonna do anything that would make me look bad as a parent. Pretty petty, and at this point in my life, I’m way past that as a parenting goal. I’m more interested in how their heart and soul is.
I’ve been pretty transparent about a lot of my parenting decisions being made out of fear. It’s exhausting and I don’t believe it’s the yoke that Jesus ever wanted me to pick up, but nonetheless I did, and despite my best attempts, it creeps in. Mary and I shared a great lunch this week consisting of carry out Chinese Food complete with fortune cookies. My fortune read “Your greatest fear will soon become your greatest strength.”
Mary asked “What’s your greatest fear mom?”
I could not answer her. Not this week. It’s been a week when fear, some founded, some unfounded, has crept into my heart.
Dr. Karl Albrecht identified 5 fears that we all share, which he called feararchy:
Extinction- the fear of ceasing to exist.
Mutilation- the fear of losing any part of our bodily structure.
Loss of Autonomy- the fear of being immobilized.
Separation- the fear of abandonment, loss of connection.
Ego-death- the fear of humiliation/shame.
I’ve shortened his definitions, but I find them relevant and true. Most of our fears and anxieties can be rooted in this hierarchy of fear. Our fears of spiders fall under the #2 Mutilation and those who struggle with claustrophobia are experiencing a fear under the #3 Loss of Autonomy. I guess my fear of what will people think or say if my child has a tattoo fits into the #5 category of ego death.
By the time you read this blog Election Day will have come and gone and at this point only God knows who will serve as our next president. Both political parties have used their share of fear mongering to scare us into what our world will look like if their opponent wins. Can I say that I’m not gonna fear? I will be disappointed if my candidate does not win, but I’m not gonna fear. Why? I can say that no matter what, my relationship with Jesus and my faith can assure me that I will experience God’s presence and peace in the midst of every circumstance I find myself in.
It has been an extremely difficult week for Tony and me in ministry. We have lost 3 people in our church family. One of those losses was a 35 year old. It doesn’t make sense. She was too young and she was a beautiful person inside and out. My mother’s heart is devastated for her mom. I know not from experience, but watching others walk this path, that losing a child is hardest hard. It changes your life forever. My friend asked me, “Rhonda, how am I supposed to do this?” She is walking through my biggest fear and the biggest fear of many and the only answer I know is by God’s Grace.
Paul, when asking God the how and why of a situation he was walking through, was told “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness”. (2 Corinthians 12:9 NLT).
Lin-Manuel Miranda penned these words in his song “It’s Quiet Uptown” in his musical Hamilton at the point where Alexander and Eliza are walking through the loss of their son Philip:
There are moments that the words don’t reach There’s a grace too powerful to name We push away what we can never understand We push away the unimaginable…
So as I push away the unimaginable, I want to go back to my opening story of Ahnya’s tattoo and my undeniable unreasonableness as a parent. Ahnya’s first tattoo is a heart with the word “Champion” forming the right side of it. It was gotten after we lost a precious little boy in our church family to cancer when he was only 5. Ahnya had a special relationship with Colton as his children’s church leader and the love Colton showed Ahnya saw her through some of the darkest days in her personal journey. Colton’s love was pure and nonjudgmental to my daughter during a time. I as a parent could not see anything but how her behavior threatened my ego-self, #5 on that feararchy chart. Petty, as I said before. Thank God, His amazing grace came through a little boy named Colton and inspired Ahnya to fight and keep the faith through a very dark time in her life.
When we imagine the unimaginable, I can only say that God’s Grace will be there. A grace too powerful to name. We will feel His power and presence. He promises us that. We want to hoard all of that up like it can be collected and stored for when we need it, but we cannot . It’s like manna and is provided as we need it. Unprecedented is the term used to describe the time we live in. Unimaginable is what I’ve heard too. May we as God’s people walk daily with this promise, His grace is sufficient for me.
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29
Oct '20
Those who live in the shelter of the Most High
29
Oct '20
Written by Becky Perkins
“Those who live in the shelter of the Most High (El Elyon) will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty (El Shaddai). This I declare about the Lord: He alone is my refuge, my place of safety; He is my God, and I trust Him” Psalms 91:1-2 NLT
Over the years, I have taken many personality tests. I try hard to come up with a different result each time. But, needless to say, I am a hopeless Melancholic. Melancholic’s motto is: “Let’s do it the right way”. We are organized, set long-range goals, have high standards and ideals. And we think and feel deeply. Melancholics get depressed when life is out of order, when no one seems to care, and when standards are not met.
Making plans, organizing the plans, and implementing the plans is what I do best. I am not a visionary, but give me the vision and I will get the job done. I have worked very hard for many years in making budgets to get out of debt and reach our household goals, making meal plans and grocery lists to eat healthy, making a daily schedule to be able to balance exercise, daily devotions, family time and office hours. I work hard on planning when and how teams and events should happen at Wesley Chapel in Faith Development. Keeping “the plan” going is what I thrive on in ministry and daily life.
At the beginning of 2020, the white board in my office was all planned out up through July 2020. By March 2020, the Faith Development teams had already held 3 Child Protection Guidelines trainings, had held a teacher appreciation, had held a family luncheon to hear what parents were in need of most in their daily lives, had planned a luncheon for Special Needs families, had planned who, what, when, where VBS would be held, was in the middle of planning teachers and nursery servants for the next school year and was beginning the process for the Easter Egg Hunt and Puppet show. In July 2020, Wayne and I had planned and saved for a 2 week vacation trip for our 40th anniversary. You see we do not take many trips and being gone 2 weeks was something we never had done in our lives. Then a worldwide Pandemic hit. This totally ruined my plan and there was not anyway I could fix this situation. Because, you see, making plans and keeping things going really is a way that Melancholic “fixes” things and take charge.
God brought Psalm 91:1-2 to my awareness through study this summer. In this verse, we see God referred to as two names, El-Elyon meaning the Lord Most High and El-Shaddai, meaning the all-sufficient one. God enlightened me with two things from this verse.
The first thing is that God is my all-sufficient one. He is enough! He is my all in all! He is providing for me and my family in ways I would have never thought of on my own. He is giving new life and vision to Faith Development teams and classes at Wesley Chapel that we would have never thought up without being forced into a Pandemic.
He is causing growth in leaders, teachers and students through Zoom meetings and classes. He is causing families (including my own family) to find enjoyment in time together, taking pleasure in the little things that we do such as walking trails, things that do not cost money, take a lot of time, effort or stress. He is creating pleasures in my life, not me creating my own pleasures.
The second thing God taught me this summer is that I cannot walk in my own shadow very long and have success. In fact, I cannot walk in my own shadow which ever direction I turn. I can only walk in His shadow. For me to walk in His shadow, I have to let Him walk in front of me and go before me to pave the path. As my all-sufficient One, I follow His path and walk where He leads. He does not take me where I think I should go sometimes, but I trust Him. “He alone is my refuge, my place of safety. He alone is my God and I trust Him”. That is pretty emphatic! It is not that I trust “in Him”, but that I do trust Him. When I trust Him, it is a personal day by day, moment by moment walk with him. He is my all in all and He is enough.
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01
Oct '20
Blessed Are Those Who Mourn
01
Oct '20
Written by Rhonda Alstott
Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted…
The Alstott Household has had a pretty traumatic week. In the span of 5 days our most loving dog, Jack, was diagnosed with cancer and declined to the point he went blind, could not walk, and could not eat. We lovingly let him go on Wednesday late afternoon after being showered with affection by
everyone all afternoon. My household has sobbed all week. In the background on the TV while we were loving him that Wednesday, the investigative findings and charges were being released in the local Breonna Taylor case. The protestor’s sobs synced with our own. It snapped Tony and me into the realization that grief over a dog pales in comparison to grief experienced over losing a child. In the quiet space of being alone that night we recounted how hard it has been to watch our friends and loved ones bury those that are so loved. It’s a hard part of ministry to do a funeral for a baby or a 5 year old. The losses we’ve experienced coupled with the losses we have witnessed remind us that all this pain and suffering is temporary, but excruciating nonetheless.
I am leading a ten week study on the Beatitudes right now and in my sometimes narcissistic view that a scripture was written with me in mind, I open my first lesson and Bible to Matthew 5…
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted”
Matthew 5:3-4
My mind was certain that God would heal my great sorrow by digging into these scriptures. But that is not where His Spirit led me.
So often we take pieces of scripture and use them to fit the narrative we want as the backdrop of our personal life. The method I use to study is called the inductive method. Context is important, original meaning is important and all the digging I do cannot lead me to fit these two verses to mean what I want them to mean…no amount of digging can lead me to feel comforted because these scriptures mean nothing of what I’ve always thought. The context isn’t death… the context is sin. The context is realizing your spiritual destitution (poor in spirit) and mourning about your sinful condition. This aligns with an Old Testament scripture I see quoted a lot these days:
“If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” 2 Chronicles 7:13-14
My desire is to be comforted, my desire is healing. That’s what I want. I want my life to travel in a linear path at an upward trajectory with no bumps in the road. I have not considered the medicine God wants me to take:
God wants me, in humility, to recognize I’m spiritually bankrupt without Him. I’m poor in spirit because of this. I’m sick about this. I mourn about this and I take responsibility and repent for the sin in my life. Then I can be part of the kingdom of heaven. Then I am comforted.
We want the healing, but we don’t want to say we are sorry for our sin.
We lack humility when it comes to this.
Tony has preached on personal holiness a lot these past few weeks. He’s also preached on community holiness. Both are important. Both are the work of sanctification by the Holy Spirit and sadly both are lacking in so many of our personal and church lives. We tend to accept Christ for our salvation, but are not sure we want him to be Lord of our kingdom. But what if we did? What if we started asking the Spirit to show us the parts of our thoughts, motives and actions that we need to be repentant for? Maybe instead of looking down on others in our current political and social climate we could ask: “Jesus show me where I am failing to live out my faith and reflect the truth of the gospel. Show me where I fall short, show me where I need to think differently, show me where I need to put love into action…” How transformative could this be than judging from the sidelines?
Maybe my mourning over the loss of my dog should take a back seat to the loss of all life. Maybe I haven’t cared about the sacredness and gift of life more. Maybe I should mourn for the unborn more. Maybe I should mourn for the addict losing their battle with drugs more and yes, maybe I should mourn about the life taken of a 26 year old shot in her apartment in Louisville more. Have I cared too little about life because my life has been unaffected? Maybe I should care more about what God says in the Bible than a news network. Maybe it’s your Spirit I should listen to instead of an author who aligns with my political party. After all, the gospel isn’t for one or the other political parties, it’s for all people in all nations. And maybe, just maybe, I should care more about pointing someone to you, our true King and Savior, instead of trying to persuade them to vote how I think they should vote. And maybe I should put aside my self-interest for the interest of your kingdom, your ways and your glory. And maybe, just maybe, others will join me in caring more and being sorry for our personal and community sins…
Maybe then you will hear and heal our land.
Healing will not happen without repentance.
Come Lord Jesus
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Pastor Tony recommends reading:
A Firm Foundation
What does the future hold for The United Methodist Church? It is the question being asked all around our denomination. What should be the response to the competing visions and notable division within contemporary Methodism in North America? Can we explore the issues confronting us in a post-Christendom era without rupturing our relationships?
This carefully curated volume engages the deep heart questions of United Methodists and casts a compelling vision by trustworthy voices for dynamic faith. Contributors explore the power of classic ideas such as:
The Lordship of Jesus Christ Engaging scripture meaningfully The power of the Holy Spirit The promise of sanctification Living with undivided purpose Fostering dynamic discipleship The gift of the global church
This resource is a useful tool not only in navigating present challenges but in pursuing the future promise for the people called Methodists. The foundational principles that have guided Methodist thought from the beginning of John Wesley’s countercultural movement remain rich resources as we explore what it means to remain faithful disciples in the tradition of the Wesleys.
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