Tim McConnell is a third generation Methodist pastor having a father and grandfather who served in the South Georgia Conference. He is a second career pastor receiving degrees from the University of North Carolina at Asheville (BA), Western Carolina University (MA Ed) and (Ed S), and finished the Course of Study at Candler School of Theology, Emory University. After a thirty-one-year career in the public school system as teacher and administrator, Tim answered the call to pastoral ministry. He has served four different churches in the past fifteen years in the Smoky Mountain District of the Western North Carolina Conference. He has just begun the fifth year of his appointment to Long's Chapel United Methodist Church at Lake Junaluska, NC as associate pastor. Tim lives at Lake Junaluska with Debbie, his wife of twenty-five years. They enjoy Marley and Patch, both "rescued-from-the animal shelter" dogs. Tim and Debbie have two children, Michael and Leah. They have four grandchildren, Jaxon Sawyer, Lily Scout, and John Howard who is known as "Huck," and their newest, Sarah Evelyn. Tim's mother, Sarah, lives in nearby Waynesville, NC. Tim has published two other books, Small Steps on a Long Journey and The Road Less Travelled, Journeying with Jesus.