The number 1,000 has played a major role in the life of Thomas Cook.
Playing an important role is what Cook and hundreds of others hope to accomplish Sunday, Oct. 1, for the inaugural Adoration 2017 event, tentatively set for the new East Tennessee State University football stadium. From 3 to 8:30 p.m. the goal is to invite representatives from 1,000 churches to take part in worship and “restore Appalachia,” according to Event Coordinator Thomas Cook. Adoration 2017 has over 100 churches signed up to participate.
“We still have a bunch of needs, and we’re two months out,” Cook said Thursday. “We have a system in place now. Our goal is to get 1,000 representatives from churches across the state to sign-up online, with approval from their pastor. Everyone from the church is invited, the whole community is invited, we want to fill up the stadium. This has an all-local focus.”
Prayer services will take place from 3 to 5 p.m., and check-in for Adoration gets underway from 5 to 5:45 p.m. Over 30 event organizers are spearheading Adoration with overwhelming support coming from ETSU officials.
“There’s not going to be a keynote speaker,” Cook said. “This is an event to spread the word of Christ. Three-fourths of the event is focused on worship, and the other fourth will be geared to the prescription drug abuse epidemic. It was a problem I didn’t we had until we started on this project. We prayed about this, and we know if we get Christians together, we’re going to serve. Our goal is to bring this up to the church. There are 12,000 churches in Tennessee, is this what we want our legacy to be? Jesus restored the broken all the way from Genesis through Revelation. We want to offer hope in the church, from all different denominations, and to those struggling.”
Cook added the event has garnered interest from as far as Memphis, Nashville and Chattanooga.
“There’s one pastor who will have a friend in town from Europe, and he’ll be representing his church, too,” Cook said. “We have quite a few churches from Elizabethton, but we’re differently looking for more.”
Cook graduated from ETSU in 2015 and talked about working alongside the different campus ministries, ranging from service and musical performances on campus to working with Good Samaritan in Johnson City.
“At that time I felt called to do this with the rest of the community,” Cook recalled. “At ETSU, it worked out so well with all the different campus ministries. I felt like the Lord prompted me to do it but I just brushed that thought away.”
But the thought wouldn’t go away for too long.
Cook talked about his time serving as a youth camp counselor last summer. During that experience, he recalled receiving the call to serve as a worship leader for a camp that would pay $1,000.
Never one to forget to pay tithes, Cook was ready to donate 10 percent but felt the calling to donate a higher amount each day, until he felt the Lord move him to give the entire amount.
“When I showed up for the camp, the speaker talked about faith and it really hit home,” Cook said. “I grew up in a great family, had my degree, and I was taking advantage of life. I submitted myself to the Lord fully.”
Following the camp, Cook went on to donate the money, anonymously, in an envelope to a worthwhile cause.
And just two weeks after, the call to form Adoration hit Cook again.
“It’s been a great experience,” he said. “When God put the initial thought in my head, I didn’t think it was possible. But this time around, I gave God my summer, the money, I asked him to strengthen my faith. I was confident I could do 100 churches. But then the number bumped up. I kept praying, and I felt God telling me to get 1,000 churches. Instead of wrestling with it, I know he was showing me to have faith. That’s where Adoration comes from.”
Visit www.adorationlife.com to sign-up and learn more about the event. As a contingency plan, if the event can not take place on the field, it will be moved to the Mountain States Health Alliance Mini-Dome on campus.