NO PLACE LIKE HOME!

Janie and I have had the opportunity to take some time off the last three weeks. As much fun as we had, the old saying is so true: “There is no place like home”. We started our adventure with a trip to the Ark Encounter in Kentucky. Wow, it is the largest wooden structure in the world. If you have kids or you are a big kid at heart, you may want to consider making the trip to see the Ark Encounter. You could also visit some of the most beautiful horse farms in the country. We left My Old Kentucky Home area for a brief stop in Sellersburg, Indiana. We have wonderful old friends who invited us over for evening meals. When God blesses you with good friends He has blessed you with a great gift.

We left Southern Indiana for our destination of the Smokey Mountains. We stayed in Pigeon Forge but our goal was to hike as much as we could. We love chasing waterfalls. Our biggest hike was 5 miles in and 5 miles out! We packed our salads…yep, our salads, and took off for our hikes. I figured if we met black bears they would not be enticed by salads!

By the way, we saw 8 black bears in Cades Cove! There were two days we did not hike. One was spent shopping at the Big Knife Store. You gotta see this place to appreciate it. The second non-hiking day was spent at Dollywood. We have been asked if we rode the roller coaster rides. Not only did we not ride them, we never even saw them. We jumped around from music venue to music venue enjoying really good music and shows. Once you hear Dolly’s story, you become a fan.

Then the last of the summer travels included going to see the Savannah Bananas. Yes, that is a real name. It is a profession baseball organization that does for baseball what the Harlem Globetrotters did for basketball…only bigger! Our daughter Erin won the tickets for the game played last weekend at the Carolina Panthers football stadium. That stadium seats 75,000 and was packed…two nights in a row setting an attendance record.

So now, we are home sweet home. We have no more travel plans for the summer that I know of so we can get back into our comfy routine.

This Sunday is Father’s Day. We will have a Parent Child Dedication service at the 11:00 service and will be recognizing and honoring one of our Elders, Frank O Hunt at the 9:00 service. This week’s sermon will finish our series on The Apostle’s Creed. I will be teaching on the section that says Jesus descended to hell. I should have assigned that one to Logan!

See you this Sunday, good Lord willing.

Pastor Tom

“Summer time and the living is easy!”

June is such a great month. The old saying is “Spring would be a tough act to follow, so God made June!” The grill gets fired up, the pools are ready, you get extra hours of daylight. You can get ready for bed while it is still light outside!

Let’s make June a month of worship, Bible study, fellowship with friends, inviting those who are close to us but far from God to join us for a fun event…like a ballgame. What a great month.

June at JIBC includes VACATION BIBLE SCHOOL. This is one of the time-honored spiritual traditions here in the South. Throughout the year, parents, grandparents, Sunday School teachers have all been planting the Gospel seeds and VBS is one of the seasons where we just might see a spiritual crop! Our VBS will be June 23-June 27. There is a VBS training event on Thursday, June 12 and the VBS Decorating Event on Saturday, June 21. See Felecia Hebert or Pastor Kyle about the details.

Father’s Day almost slips by without too much fanfare. Not this year! This year we will have a “Parent Child Dedication Service” on June 15 at the 11:00 service. If you feel like double dipping, we will also have a recognition of one of our faithful servants on that day, too!

Here is a June event that happened as a result of the Festival of Hope. On June 29, 6:30 p.m., JIBC will host a free “Narcan Training” event. The Festival of Hope was designed to help remove the stigma of mental health issues and to raise awareness of addictions. There have been 187 drug overdose deaths this past year in Charleston. In South Carolina there were 2,296 drug overdose deaths in 2022. Let’s make June a month we decided to do something to change that number. Everyone attending will receive a free Narcan kit and free training.

June is the gateway to summer. Let’s make June a fun gateway to worship, service, fellowship and friends!

Summer time and the living is easy…and blessed, I hope!

Pastor Tom

WE BIRTHED THAT BABY!

 

It was a long and very busy 9 months but that baby finally arrived! This past Saturday witnessed the wonderful arrival of the Festival of Hope “baby”! She arrived in the blazing sun. She was a little under weight but just as beautiful as she could be. I am, of course, talking about the Festival of Hope…that is the beautiful baby!

The Festival of Hope was everything we dreamed it could be with the exception of attendance being a little lower that anticipated. Pastor Kyle estimates that we had close to 700 guests, over 75 volunteers and maybe 111 people at the 38 Vendors of Hope booths! We gave out over 900 of the entrance wrist bands!

I walked up to one family and asked if they were having a good time. With a big smile on her face she just kept saying “They gave me new clothes for my baby!” I asked another person if they were enjoying the day and the event. She smiled and said “Yep, I just signed up for my first session of counseling therapy!” I am hoping there are hundreds of stories similar to these two.

This was probably the largest mission event JIBC has tackled in quite a while. Pastor Kyle and the amazing platoon of volunteers did an outstanding job. They dealt with the heat, met scores of people, blessed in Jesus’ name, networked with other helping organizations, etc. This day went about as well as I could ever have expected it to! Well done, good and faithful servants, well done!

Now, ready for the topping on top of the pie? One of the larger organizations told me they want to do this event next year. They wanted Kyle to meet with them at a later date to tell them how we put on this Festival of Hope. Oh my, we get to infuse the Spirit of the Lord and His creativity and someone else foots the bill and does the heavy lifting! Amen and Hallelujah!

Thank you again to our church leaders, Finance Team and our members for being willing to take on the spiritual giants.

Blessings in the Name above all names, Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord!

Pastor Tom

TAKING ON THE GIANTS

You know the story of David and Goliath.  Goliath thought he was too big to hit and David thought Goliath was too big to miss!  So…David rocked Goliath’s world.  Check out the story in 1 Samuel 17.  David was told he was too little and Goliath was too big.  David changed the field of battle when he said:  “I come to you in the Name of the LORD”.  The rest, as they say is history. 

Why take on the giants in our community? Because it is our community, it is the LORD’s community. JIBC has a great history of taking on some of the largest challenges in our community. Mental Health illness is a giant. There are 59 million adults with mental illness That is 23% of the population. Over 42 million adults have anxiety disorders and 31% of those have had anxiety disorders for most of their lifetime. Addiction affects 46 million adults in the United States. Major depression affects 4.8 million youth. That is almost 20% of youth. Mental Health America makes these stats known. If interested you can keep learning more and more. This is a BIG GIANT and you are taking it on at the Festival of Hope this Saturday, May 17.

Our goal is to help remove the stigma of mental health disease and raise the awareness of addiction-substance use disorders. The two of them often go together. The substance abuse is often used to self -medicate the pain and problems created by the mental health disease.

We have gathered over 35 Vendors of Hope that offer help to anyone interested in Mental Health and addiction; to anyone needing resources to help; to anyone needing to network with others with like-minded missions. Doing this in a family friendly environment is one way to help remove the stigma. Families can come and enjoy good music, good food, fun inflatables and meet over 35 Vendors of Hope working to make our community better…to fight some of the giants.

By the way, who was the greatest babysitter in the Bible? David of course. He rocked Goliath to sleep! Just remember if God puts a Goliath in front of you, He must believe there is a David inside of you! Thanks for being a church family that takes on the giants. I love you all!

Pastor Tom

The Final Countdown

For all of the Rocky Balboa fans, think “the final countdown”. Rocky is going to the Soviet Union to fight Drago, the man that seems to be more machine than man. Rocky increases his training to almost super human levels. Rocky goes all in, no turning back, no throwing in the towel. What follows is one of the all-time classic fight scenes in Hollywood history. And of course, Rocky wins. He makes a plea for change and unity. His haunting cry in the ring “Everybody can change!” That is a little Gospel nugget right there.

OK, maybe a little over the top. The Festival of Hope is nearing the final countdown. On Saturday, May 17 from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM JIBC will host what may be the largest gathering of Hope Vendors in the Charleston area. Our goal is to take on Drago, a giant in our community: Mental Health Issues and Addictions/Substance Use Disorders. I know, it is a giant of a problem. I think we have done everything we know to do in reference to putting this family friendly Festival of Hope together. There will be approximately 35 Vendors of Hope from a wide variety of agencies, organizations, ministries, counselors, trauma specialists, Veterans support groups, children’s services, and on and on.

What is left to do? 1) Pray that the Spirit of God will move the hearts of hundreds if not thousands to attend. Let them be mysteriously interested and moved to be a part of this event. 2) Attend. Bring family and friends. We all have issues and have family and friends with issues. There will be a plethora of resources available to help get us connected. (I don’t get to use the word plethora a lot!) 3) We still need around 50 volunteers to give us the ability to cover all the areas adequately. To volunteer, please text Pastor Kyle at 919-218-4455.

By the way, the energetic song “The Final Countdown” is not the soundtrack for Rocky IV. It sounds like it should have been and it will forever be in my mind as a motivational song. See you this Sunday as we continue with the “I Believe” series. This Sunday will be “I believe in God the Father, Almighty, maker of Heaven and earth”.

Pastor Tom

LESS THAN THREE WEEKS!

It seems like so long ago that we began dreaming and planning for the Festival of Hope. But here it is less that three weeks away. Here are the basics. The Festival of Hope is one way to help remove the stigma of mental health illness and to raise awareness of addiction, substance use disorders. How could we do this on a large scale? That was the question. Then we started with the idea of having a “Festival of Hope”. We would invite Vendors of Hope to join us. These are individuals and organizations that would join us and advertise and promote what they do to help bring hope. We have counselors, the Charleston Center, National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), Wake Up Carolina, Lowcountry Behavioral, Connie Maxwell, Warrior Surf Foundation, His Radio, James Island Outreach, etc, etc. I could not be more pleased with the “buy in” and enthusiastic desire to be a part of this day of hope.

We are providing a family environment that in itself will go a long way to removing the stigma of mental health. We are not hiding our mental health issues; we are building a festival around them! A person would be able to stop by any of the booths to meet the Vendors of Hope. There will be lots of giveaways, free food and the best music on the Island from our friends Wildflower Station! We will begin at 10:00 am with a patriotic ceremony featuring a color guard and the singing of the National Anthem. The first 1000 people get vouchers to eat free or to have a shaved Kona ice treat or a coffee from “Tom’s Coffee Truck”. Btw, that is a different Tom…not me!

So, who should come to the Festival of Hope? It is not a stretch to say everyone. We all have struggles we live with. Some have minor mental health struggles and some are more serious. We all know someone who has addiction issues. Addiction can be more that drugs and alcohol. Meeting these Vendors of Hope may help us know resources that can help. Seeing all the resources God has put together in one place may be exactly what some need. Let’s hope so. Janie and I plan to be there volunteering where ever Pastor Kyle needs help. Hope to see you there too!

Pastor Tom

Why The Festival of Hope and Why for Me?

Those are fair questions. Why are we producing, promoting and pushing this Festival of Hope, May 17 from 10 AM to 2 PM? It has long been on my heart to find a way to help remove the stigma of mental health issues and to raise awareness of addictions/substance use disorders. It is my belief that a very large percentage of addiction issues are rooted in mental health issues. (By the way, I don’t think all mental health issues end in addictions). I do believe almost all addictions (drugs, alcohol, shopping, gambling, sexual addictions, etc.) are fueled by an undiagnosed or untreated mental health issue. My prayer is that we could help find a way to remove the stigma of mental health issues and make it easier for everyone to seek help and be supported.

Now, how does that relate to you? I suspect most of us know someone struggling with mental health illness and/or addictions. We might not know of resources to help them. The Festival of Hope is assembling what may be the biggest one time gathering of helping ministries in the Charleston area. The list includes what I call all the heavy hitters: The Charleston Center, National Alliance of Mental Illness, Steadfast Recovery Ministries, Charleston Teen and Family EMPOWER, Charleston HOPE, Connie Maxwell Children Ministries, Lowcountry Biblical Counseling Center, Barrier Island Free Clinic, Wake Up Carolina, Warrior Surf Foundation, The Navigation Center, and on and on. Our goal is to have 40 of these Vendors of Hope who are all on board with our mission.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness shares the following: 1 out of 5 adults experience mental illness each year; 706,000 adults in South Carolina have a mental health condition; 1 in 6 youth experience a mental health disorder each year; over 200,000 adults in South Carolia did not receive needed mental health care. The numbers can go on and on. I think we get the point. Perhaps many of us have been there or at least know someone we love who has been there. We are gathering 40 of our city’s best resources to be available at no charge. Talk to a counselor, stop by a find out what that agency does, connect with people who are making a difference.

Now, let’s say your life is free from anything described above. Why is the Festival of Hope for you? We want you to come and volunteer. Be a greeter, help park cars, serve food, rub shoulders, encourage the Vendors of Hope, etc. Invite, invite, and invite. Our goal is 1,000 people. We are ready for 2,000! Pray that we continue to find favor with God and man!

See you Sunday,

Pastor Tom