We have had a wonderful Advent Season. I loved the title we chose for this year: Best Day Ever! I think we have succeeded in providing a constant, loving reminder of the “reason for the season”. Our worship team and technical team have done an outstanding job of leading us in worshipping our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ. Our church family and friends have responded with great generosity in making sure we can connect Advent worship with Advent missions. I do not have any easy way to count the jars of jelly, the boxes of diapers and wipes or the ever so cute outfits for the preschoolers. Thank you, Lord Jesus and thank you ,JIBC family and friends for your amazing love and generous giving. My best guess estimate: Over 200 jars of jelly and 100 bottles of syrup for James Island Outreach; 150 outfits for the preschoolers helped by Lowcountry Orphan Relief; maybe over 5000 diapers for Lowcountry Pregnancy Center. Now, let’s add, so far, $19,476 to the Lottie Moon International Missions offering! This may be the largest Lottie Moon Offering ever in the history of JIBC. By the way, we also sent $4000 to our mission partners in Campulung, Romania. They are starting a mission church to the Roma, sometimes referred to as Gypsies. I requested a list of mission projects they were trying to accomplish. Cheryl Parish did the contact work for us. They sent us a list of 4 projects they were attempting: House shoes for 326 orphans; wood for the winter for the mission; linoleum in the church hall of the mission; 20 more second hand chairs. JIBC has been so blessed, we asked if we could meet all these needs. We will show a brief 3 minute film from the Romanian Pastor and our own, Cheryl Parish.
We are still receiving diapers, jelly, syrup, 5T and 5 yr old clothes and offerings for International Missions. To God be the glory.
CHRISTMAS EVE SERVICES
Please note this change. For this Sunday, Christmas Eve, we will combine our 9:00 and 11:00 worship services and meet at 10:00. Janie and I are hosting a drop in at 9:00 AM in the fellowship hall. Come on by and say hello…or Merry Christmas. We changed the morning services to give a break to our leaders since we will all be back for our traditional Carols, Communion and Candlelight Services at 4:00 and 6:00.
Merry Christmas One and all! We love doing life with our JIBC family.
See you Sunday, good Lord willing.
Pastor Tom
I know Elizabeth Barrett Browning was not talking about Christmas. She is talking about the deep spiritual aspects of love. I want to borrow her words and talk about James Island Baptist and Christmas. Oh, how I love JIBC and the Christmas season.
I love that Christmas brings out lots and lots of generous giving. I get requests everyday in the mail. Some are ministries and organizations that Janie and I support. We make giving to them a part of our celebration of our Saviors birth. Since I can’t give Him gold, frankincense or myrrh, I can give financially to people in need and ministries that bless. I love the lights of Christmas that remind me Jesus is the Light of the world. I love Christmas music. From here until Christmas I will try to incorporate Christmas hymns into my daily Quiet Time. I enjoy easy listening Christmas jazz. I love sending a receiving Christmas cards. Many of them are beautiful pieces of art. Janie and I save any cards we might receive. Starting January 1 we start going through the cards and praying for whoever sent them. I pray for them one day and then place them where Janie has her Quiet Time. Then she prays for them. Then we save them for Mark Livengood and his ministry in Ukraine or Slovakia.
Have you seen the stage in the Worship Center? It exploded with love and generosity. More that we could have imagined or asked for. And we still have three more weeks to receive gifts of diapers, wipes, 5T and 5 clothes, jelly and syrup and the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering.
Hey, by the way, when we were collecting these gifts, we had a group collecting items for prisoners in South Carolina. Fantastic! Oh, James Island Baptist, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways. It would be almost impossible to count the ways because so many are doing so many wonderful things. Bless you for staying outward focused. Your generous giving will result in praise and thanksgiving to God.
Dear Father, you gave the best and most awesome gift, Your Son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
See you Sunday, good Lord willing.
Pastor Tom
This past weekend, I was blessed with “worship x 4”. I had four very unique and very moving worship experiences. The first one came from what some may think of as a very unusual time. Saturday, we had a Life Celebration/ Funeral Service for Breanna Simmons. I had the privilege of marrying Breanna and Al Simmons almost 10 years ago. Bre developed breast cancer. She fought for the better part of 3 years with a positive attitude and strong courage. Our worship leader, praise team and tech crew put together a beautiful Life Celebration Worship service. I felt as though God would have been pleased and honored as we sought to give Him glory and ask for His mercy and strength. Bre’s life celebration service was attended by around 150 to 200 people. Only handfuls were from JIBC. That means a lot of people were blessed by our effort to show them a good and beautiful Father and to present the Good News of the Gospel.
The second and third worship times happened on Sunday morning as we gathered together with our church family. Our 9:00 service was attended by 94 people. It was a great way to begin this year’s advent season. We sang a favorite Christmas Hymn “O Come O Come Emmanuel”. One hour later, 127 of us gathered at 11:00 to celebrate the Hope we have in the advent/coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. I so love this time of the year as we celebrate “Best Day Ever!” The Advent Mission Gifts are beginning to fill the worship center stage. It looks beautiful.
The fourth time of worship was during Celebrate Recovery. Pastor David and his team lead the CR group in “celebrating” our recovery. The songs are always heartfelt. By the way, did you know that half of the people who attend Celebrate Recovery are there for reasons like co-dependency, control issues, relationship issues, PTSD, depression or other mental health challenges? I so love singing with others who are on journey toward recovery.
I felt I was particularly blessed with WORSHIP X 4. Worship makes the most wonderful time of the year even a little more wonderful.
Remember when you are out shopping to pick up one or two of the items we are collection this year: diapers, wipes, jelly or syrup and any clothes item for size 5 and 5T. We also encourage you to consider a gift to the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering. Thank you for the outpouring of love to our Father and to those who are under served.
See you soon, good Lord willing,
Pastor Tom
