St. Luke’s History

After being amicably released from the Pentecostal Holiness Church, Fr. Bob (Robert) Wills joined the CEC in 1996. He was ordained a priest in June of 1997. For the next three years he worked with and was a Priest-in-residence at St. Michael Church in Thomaston, Georgia.

After serving as a priest-in-residence with St. Michael’s Church in Thomaston, Georgia for a couple of years, Fr. Bob began holding Tuesday night meetings in a Methodist Church in Manchester, Georgia in 1999. Over the next 2 years the group grew to 18 people.

Thirteen of those people moved to Thomaston to be a part of St. Michaels and several of those were subsequently ordained into the Deaconate.

In 2000 Fr. Bob was seeking direction from God once again. Should he get a building and start a church? Should he close the mission down? Only four or five attendees were left.

The Archdeacon had a prophetic word for Robert on the second night of an International Convocation. He said, “Have you told your bishop that you are starting a church soon. You need to because you are. It will be soon—the first of the year. You will be in a red brick building between two traffic lights in a small town. There is a glass front. The building is on an alley and the parking is in the rear.

Fr. Bob’s wife, Sharon found the building the next week and the Church first met on the Baptism of the Lord Day in 2001. St. Luke Church was officially begun in a store front building and continued there for eleven and a half years. The roof often leaked, and the building was hot in summer and cold in winter, but the years there were good.

In June of 2012 St. Luke Church bought a former Methodist Church building in Chalybeate Springs, just outside of Manchester. The denomination gave the church $9000 for a down payment, and the church bought a $220,000 building for $46,000. It was a real blessing and miracle. The church paid the $9000 back to the CEC in exactly one year, even though this was not required. St. Luke CEC has one of the best buildings in the diocese.