MACON, GA — A Macon-area man set off what denominational officials are calling “a cascading pastoral emergency” Tuesday after forwarding a chain email to all 247 members of Cornerstone Fellowship’s directory, claiming God had told him the church “needed to see this.”

The email, which features a faded JPEG of a sunset cross and promises that forwarding it to twelve people within twenty-four hours will yield “an unexpected blessing before Thursday,” was traced by church IT volunteer Derek Hollis, 52, to an original send date of October 2003. It has reportedly circled through American Christendom uninterrupted for twenty-three years.

“I just felt a real peace about sending it,” said Dale Kowalski, 67, a deacon and the email’s most recent distributor. “The Lord laid it on my heart, and my heart said reply-all.”

By Wednesday morning, eleven members had unsubscribed from a mailing list they had never subscribed to, three had sent lengthy personal testimonies to the full directory, and one man—identified only as “Gary”—had replied requesting prayer for his knee surgery, his cousin’s divorce, and “the general state of things.”

“Technically the blessing hasn’t come yet, but Gary did get a lot of casseroles, so make of that what you will.” — Derek Hollis, 52, Church IT Volunteer

Pastor Len Fuqua, 48, addressed the situation from the pulpit Sunday, noting that the church’s actual prayer chain — a functioning text thread — had been available since 2019 and had sixteen members.

At press time, Dale had forwarded a second email warning that Bill Gates was tracking church attendance through communion cups, and was asking people to “just keep an open mind.”