Gotta Love It!

The names have been left out but the story is still as wonderfully precious. A dad was taking his little girl to Children’s Worship. The only place he ever saw where children’s worship was going on was in the Youth Worship Center during Vacation Bible School.

He noticed his daughter look a little apprehensive, even a little bit afraid. There could be many reasons for that: she might not have recognized anyone or saw any of her friends just yet. But dad did notice she seemed a little scared. All the other children seemed to be having fun and one of the children already there took her by the hand and off they went. Dad returns to mom in “Big Church” and reports the daughter’s hesitation. “It was like she was scared.” Mom digested that report and then decided to go and check it out. Here is what happened. Dad, by an innocent mistake, took his daughter to the Ukrainian Worship Service. There were several children present. It looked absolutely normal. Loving children, happy faces, one little girl taking the hand of his daughter. All is well…almost.

Here is my absolute favorite part of the story. When mom returned to check on her daughter, the Ukrainian little girl was still holding the hand of the confused little girl. She held the little girl’s hand until mom came to get her and take her to the Children’s Worship.

That is it. That is the picture of church, of the family of God, of loving people like Jesus. We hold their hands until everything is made right. We welcome them because we never thought of anything else but welcoming them. They are a temporary part of our family and we are glad they are.

I have seen a lot of really great things lately. This has to be high on the list of one of my absolute favorites. This story is about love on so many levels. You gotta love it!

See you Sunday, good Lord willing. Let’s hold someone’s hand that needs a little reassurance.

Pastor Tom

THE GOSPEL PROJECT

This past Sunday Pastor Kyle told us about the strategy for helping our Children become disciples of Jesus. The Children that were “promoted” from Preschool to the first grade we presented a brand- new NIV Adventure Bible, the #1 Bible for Children. I have looked through this Bible and I really like it a lot! We gave out 8 Sunday but have Children’s Bibles available for any child that wants one. Just see one of the staff and we will make sure you get one for your child.

Pastor Kyle also told us about The Gospel Project children’s Bible Study curriculum. Listen to this. This is a Christ-Centered, chronological Bible Studies for kids. It also is available for youth and adults. Every story points back to Jesus; encourages transformation that comes as a result of the Gospel; they will study the Bible from Genesis to Revelation; hear doctrinally sound lessons; with a continuing emphasis on living a missional life. The Gospel Project will go through the entire Bible in a three-year period. You really want to have your children and grandchildren in one of these classes. By the way these classes are taught by Mark Livengood (Elder), Ronnie Cooper (Elder) Nancy Livengood and Billy Hebert (Deacon). This is as solid of a Children’s Team as you can get! Then the Children always have the option of attending Children’s Worship each week.

When you add the Awana Ministry to this mix, you have a really solid Children’s ministry. Awana is a world-wide ministry that reaches over 9 million Children every week. There are over 96,000 churches that use Awana as part of their disciple making process. It is being taught in over 140 different countries.

The goal of our Children’s Ministry is that Kids will know they belong to Jesus, believe His word and become more like Him. Amen and amen!

Thanks to all who work as a part of our process of making disciples who make disciples that change our community and world.

See you Sunday, good Lord willing,

Pastor Tom

Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!

This past Tuesday, August 5, was the day to pack all the school supplies that will be delivered to the brand new Johns Island Elementary School and to the James Island Elementary School. You were so generous in your giving that we were able to share the love between the two schools. Each school will receive 40 back packs filled with everything on the list the schools provided. They will also receive additional bookbags and school supplies to be given out when school starts. In addition, the teachers will be given bins full of supplies they asked for: paper towels, wipes, liquid soap, Clorox wipes, sharpies, etc. Our prayer is that both schools, the teachers, the parents and all the children will feel the love and support. We pray for each of the students to have a great year. We also put a simple plan of salvation card in each book bag. The worship center stage was wonderfully covered with a small mountain of school supplies. Thank you again for your love for our community!

LORD’S SUPPER, BIBLE PRESENTATION, COMMISSIONING

This Sunday, August 10 will be a great day to be in the House of the Lord. We have Bible presentations to the rising first graders; another missionary commissioning (Cheryl and Anne going to Romania); and the Lord’s Supper. What a day of celebration! By the way, the children will be receiving the NIV /Adventure Bible. I hope you will have an opportunity to take a look at one of these Children’s BibleS. Wow, what a wonderful gift. If you have a child that does not have a Bible, please see me and we will try to get that problem solved!

The Lord’s Supper this week will be the conclusion of our series “Spiritual Conversations: Let’s Talk About…”. I am so looking forward to this Sunday.

A SHORT TRIP AWAY

This past weekend, Janie and I took a brief trip to Havelock, North Carolina to see my brother. It was a good trip blessed with uneventful and safe travel. I was pleased to be able to spend two days with Bubba and Martha, my older brother and older sister. Thank you to our staff for covering the bases in my absence. I am blessed indeed.

See you Sunday,

Pastor Tom

Four International Touch Points

Do you believe God can touch the world through James Island Baptist? Yes, of course we believe. It is the Great Commission that calls us to go into all the world and make disciples.

So, off goes Mark L. to Slovakia working with resettled Ukrainians escaping the war; off goes Robin C. and Brook B. to Colombia South America; off goes Amanda and Lyla H. to Uganda; and there goes Cheryl and Anne to Romania. Remember these in your prayers as they take the love of God and the Good News of Jesus to the utter most part of the world!

But what about “Missions at home”? Let’s talk about that. We host a new start Ukrainian Church who is trying to reach those in our community who were part of the former Soviet Union. Pastor Claudio and Claudia continue to lead Luz y Verdad to reach the Hispanic Church in the greater Charleston area. They are reaching about 100 each week and are constantly going to share the love of God to Migrants in Beaufort, Walterboro, etc.

Show some love locally? Of course! We are collecting school supplies for the underserved students at the new Johns Island Elementary School. We are trying to coordinate catering a meal for the teachers and distributing over 100 book bags filled with school supplies. Thank you all for being so generous .

Just around the corner is our mission partners, James Island Outreach. We are keeping them supplied with Jelly and syrup. It seems like they come by every two weeks to pick up all that you have donated. I love imaging some senior adult enjoying their biscuits or their PB&J with the jelly you donated!

Last of all I want to mention the “Spiritual Conversation” display. It is full to the brim indicating that our church family and friends have had almost 300 spiritual conversations in the last 6 weeks! We had to add two more containers to handle all the ping pong balls that represent spiritual conversations.

I love what our Father is doing. I love how you are following. See you soon, good Lord willing.

Pastor Tom

HE RESTORES MY SOUL

As a part of our “Spiritual Conversations: Let’s Talk About…” I talked about Mental Health. Over the years we have tried to help remove the stigma sometimes associated with mental health illnesses. God even enabled us to put together a community wide Festival of Hope addressing Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders/Addictions.

Elijah is one of the greatest characters in the Old Testament. Even so, it did not keep him from experiencing despair, discouragement and depression. The Bible makes no attempt to hide Mental Health Illness of its heroes

Today, I wanted to put together a list of my favorite Bible verses about peace and calm. Here are 10 Bible verses that you can write down in the cover of your Bible so you can turn to them quickly and often. See if you agree about these verses: Philippians 4:6-7; 2 Timothy 1:7; Psalm 23; Matthew 11:28-30; 1 Peter 5:7; Isaiah 41:10; John 14:27; Psalm 46:1-3; & Deuteronomy 31:6. What verses would you add to these?

Read and meditate on these verses. Keep them in an easy to find place. Let them so bless you that you in turn will be able to use them to bless others.

In addition, here are two prayers that you might find helpful in your journey toward peace that passes all understanding. The first one is the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time, enjoying one moment at a time, Accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is, Not as I would have it.

The second one you are more familiar with, The Model Prayer also called The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, The power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.

Allow me to speak this blessing over you and your loved ones: The LORD bless you and keep you; The LORD make His face to shine upon you; And be gracious to you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace. Deuteronomy 6:24-26

See you Sunday good Lord willing!

Pastor Tom

CELEBRATE AND SHARE THE LOVE

There are two thoughts on my heart this morning: celebrate and share the love. We try to live by the philosophy that we celebrate what we value and we value what we celebrate. So, let’s talk about both.

First, we celebrate the 8 students who made decisions to be followers of Jesus Christ. Pastor Logan and his crew of great volunteers took 29 Students to camp. That is the largest camp group Logan has had in all his years with us. I am sure the camp had great moments of Bible Study and Worship, Fellowship and Discipleship. But what can you say about 8 students making professions of faith. Let’s try “Hallelujah!”. Your giving, your prayers, your saying an encouraging word, your willingness to sacrifice so the volunteers could go…it all is a part of the process our Heavenly Father uses to bring his little lambs home! Thank you for praying, for giving, for going, for supporting. Pastor Logan will begin part two of discipleship right away teaching them the basics of how to follow Jesus.

WE ARE PLANNING A BEACH BAPTISM ON WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 13 AT 6:30 P.M. We will gather at the Folly Beach County Park! Anyone who would like to be baptized is welcome to join us. Just let us know! We will also be glad to plan a baptism at the church for those who cannot make it to the beach. We love to celebrate baptisms! Hallelujah!!!

SHARE THE LOVE.
For the past years we have sponsored a back to school “School Supplies” for our community. We were always honored to work with Emmanuel Baptist Church and the James Island Outreach. I think I understand that James Island Christian will be joining in the School Supply Mission! That is great news.

We decided to share the love and welcome the new Johns Island Elementary School to the community. A new school and free school supplies for the under-served. What is there to not love about that? The list of supplies is what the school told us they need. We will set a goal of 100 book bags filled with supplies. We will be collecting the supplies until August 3 and will pack them on Tuesday, August 5 from 10 AM—Noon. Anyone who could or would help will be we greatly appreciated. Let’s share the love! Imagine the relief of 100 parents who don’t have to purchase supplies! Wow, what a load off their hearts.

Thank you JIBC. Celebrate and share the love!

Pastor Tom

THE HEAVY LIFTING IS OFTEN DONE BEHIND THE SCENES

There are a lot of times when an event or production takes place and everything falls into place and all goes smoothly. What is sometimes overlooked or never even seen is what goes on behind the scene. The behind the scene activity is often what we would refer to as the heavy lifting. Without the set up and support the show might go on but it will be a little bit slower.

In church world, particularly JIBC world, those who volunteer to work behind the scenes get a lot of credit for helping the worship service go smoothly. I am referring to those who work in the Sunday preschool nursery. What a great team doing a great service for parents and families. They provide a great service to the families and provide much love to the preschool children. They are the Jesus-like figures who, like Jesus, welcome the little ones to come to them! They love them, teach them, sing with them and play with them. Week in week out they do the heavy lifting.

As you might imagine, it takes a big group of volunteers to successfully run a great nursery. In our case, we have a 9:00 Worship service that provides a nursery: a 10:00 Bible Study hour that requires a nursery; and the 11:00 Worship service that provides a nursery. My understanding is the 10:00 nursery during Bible Study is “covered” by a well- oiled team! We do, however, need a dozen volunteers to help during the worship services, both the 9 and 11. The 9:00 nursery volunteers serve 1 Sunday a month. There are times when there are no preschoolers for that particular service. Perhaps you and a spouse or you and a friend or family member would like to volunteer for the 1X a month team. You could still go to the 11:00 service and not “miss worship” if you chose to.

We also need a larger group of volunteers to serve during the 11:00 hour. We try to schedule the 11:00 volunteers to serve 1 Sunday out of 8. Ideally that would be 6 times a year! Behind the scenes, heavy lifting but with great payoff. You are helping form a preschoolers first impression of “church”. You are assisting parents and families that need the extra help and care. Again, these volunteers are doing the heavy lifting that allows much of what we do in worship to be done. If this is an area you would be willing to serve in a rotation, would you let Pastor Kyle know. We would love to have all these times covered by our people with servant hearts.

See you this Sunday as we look at “Spiritual Conversations: Let’s talk about forgiveness”.

Pastor Tom