I am thankful for a lot of blessings that came to JIBC in 2021. We were blessed and chose to be a blessing. I love that about our church family. There are also a lot of struggles and pains that I am all too happy to turn the page on. Let’s count them as learning opportunities and move on in Kingdom work.
Being outwardly focused has brought many blessings to our church family. During the Advent season, we focused on the birth of Christ and many of the theological implications: Christ in Creation, Christ in the Cradle, Christ on the Cross and Christ wearing a Crown at His return. We also focused on blessing the underserved.
To support world-wide missions, you gave $14,325 to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. You also gave an additional $3,316 at the Christmas Eve Worship Services, all of which will go to missions. During the Advent Season, you gave $17,641 to Missions. Back during August, you gave an additional $22,000 to missions during what we called Kingdom Giving Sunday. That is $39,641.00 given above the $30,000 we budget to missions. Thank you for loving those you have never met but one day, in heaven, we will!
Another part of Advent involved giving to support the James Island Outreach. Years ago we made the commitment that no one on James Island goes to bed hungry unless we don’t know about it. We were designated as the “jelly church”, so jelly it is. You understood the assignment and responded with enthusiasm. You gave 270 jars of jelly! You gave so much jelly that the Director of JIO asked that we not bring any more for a while. By the way, keep bringing jelly. We will house it here at JIBC and give it to them when they run out!
In addition to the jelly, you gave 57 bags of groceries for the BackPack Buddies Ministry. This is a ministry to help underserved children. They may get a hot meal at school but possibly not a hot meal on the weekend. You gave enough healthy snacks to pack, in my estimation, backpacks for almost 200 children. All together you gave 968 pounds of groceries…just short of ½ a ton of love!
And, we have not even mentioned the diapers, diaper wipes and new clothing for the clients at Low Country Pregnancy! I lost count when I hit 4000 diapers and 5,000 baby wipes!
Now that is the way to celebrate Christmas! Great music, solid theology, helping the underserved, and on and on we go to the GLORY OF GOD OUR FATHER AND LORD JESUS CHRIST!
Hey, did you save your Christmas cards? Mark Livengood is collecting them in case the door opens for him to go to Ukraine. He uses them in his mission work there!
See you Sunday remembering…Better Together!
Pastor Tom
