3.3.2024 | Turning the Tables | Rev. Karen Kagiyama

Newnan FUMC

We welcomed Reverend Karen Kagiyama to Newnan First United Methodist Church on Sunday, March 3. She preached on the Gospel of John 2:13-22.

Rev. Kagiyama is the O. Wayne Rollins Director of Pastoral Care at Wesley Woods Senior Living. A graduate of Emory University and the Candler School of Theology at Emory, Karen is an ordained elder in the North Georgia Conference of The United Methodist Church.

For more than thirty years, Karen has served churches in Colorado, North Carolina and Georgia and was also the Wesley Foundation Director at The University of West Georgia. She is married to David Newton, a professor of English at The University of West Georgia, and they have two children: Kelcy, a graduate of Georgia Tech, and Caroline, a graduate of The University of Georgia. Born in Japan, with roots in Hawaii, Karen enjoys gardening, hiking, reading, and music.

John 2:13-22

The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and the money changers seated at their tables. Making a whip of cords, he drove all of them out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle. He also poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. He told those who were selling the doves, “Take these things out of here! Stop making my Father’s house a marketplace!” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for your house will consume me.” The Jews then said to him, “What sign can you show us for doing this?” Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The Jews then said, “This temple has been under construction for forty-six years, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking of the temple of his body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.