Staff Report

Franklin County News-Online is pleased to announce a new weekly addition to our growing list of writers and columnists.

Pastors from the Sesser-Valier Ministerial Alliance will be contributing a column each week on a wide and diverse range of topics. The weekly endeavor — called “Faith Matters” – will run each Friday in FCN Online.

Owner/Publisher Jim Muir said he is excited about the new association with local pastors and believes the weekly column will provide commentary that will “inspire, motivate and add food for thought for our many readers.”

“While we were discussing the parameters of the weekly column the one item that was discussed the most was the content of the column,” said Muir. “I made it clear that I wanted to give the pastors a lot of freedom in their writing. I believe we will have columns that will range from what is happening at some local churches to points of view on national, state and local issues. I see this as being a great source of information for our readers, and more importantly I believe it will open a line of discussion on important issues.”

The Rev. Kirk Packer, president of the ministerial alliance and pastor of First Christian Church in Sesser, said he believes the weekly articles will be important in showing how faith is a part of our everyday life.

“One of the tragedies of our current culture is that many of us have bought the lie that our faith does not apply to the daily decisions of life.  This separation of faith and life has led us down a slope of darkness that will end in slavery,” said Packer.  “One of my hopes for this article is that through it we can show how faith impacts every facet of our lives and leads us to real freedom.  This truth flies in the face of the false notion that faith actually leads to oppression.  The history of the founding of our nation, affirms that faith applied to the core of all our decisions is actually the door to real freedom.”

Faith Matters will run each Friday in FCN Online and all the columns will be linked to Facebook.