HOLY WEEK/PASSION WEEK

Starting this past Sunday, Holy week began with Palm Sunday, sometimes referred to as the Triumphal Entry. This past Sunday was a wonderful day of worship. Attendance was up, singing was joyful, the preschoolers and children did a fantastic job with the parade of the Palm Branches. Celebrate Recovery had a good night supporting one another.

Two of our events will be over by the time you read this. Wednesday night will be our Children and Family Resurrection Party. I know it will be a wonderful event. Our Day School Spring Sing will be Thursday morning. It is always an over load of cuteness! Great leaders put together great teams! Way to go.

Perhaps you will get this newsletter in time to be reminded of this year’s Good Friday service. We will have a Concert of Prayer from 7:00 to 8:00 pm. Pastor David and his talented team have planned a very beautiful service combining the Passion of Christ and the ACTS of prayer. I hope you will be able to join us. We are scheduled to have Communion at the Good Friday Concert of Prayer.

And then…HE IS RISEN…HE IS RISEN INDEED. We celebrate Resurrection Sunday. It looks like this year’s weather will favor our Flowering of the Cross. Each year we take a cross specifically built to be decorated with flowers and cover it with beautiful flowers…most of which come out of our yards. You are invited to bring your flowers to the worship center/sanctuary Sunday before the 9:00 service and before the 11:00 service. We will have volunteers there to help put the flowers on the cross. It is really beautiful once it is completed. The old rugged cross is transformed into a wondrous attraction to me!

Sunday will also be the pre-launch Sunday for our 40 Days of Prayer. The 40 DOP is an intentional, church-wide study on the power of God and the power of prayer designed to help us grow closer to God individually, deeper in our connections with each other and wider in our outreach to family and friends.

There are 3 basic parts to the 40 Days of Prayer. First, will be the Sunday gathering for worship. For the next 6 weeks, my teachings and our worship will all be centered around prayer. Second, you can join a small group/connection group to journey together. You will be led by Rick Warren on video. The third part of the 40 DOP will be your daily devotional using the 40 DOP Daily Devotional guide. I think you will really enjoy it!

Let’s start practicing: “He is risen! He is risen indeed!” See you Sunday, good Lord willing.

Pastor Tom

North American Missions: Annie Armstrong Easter Offering

There are approximately 371 Million people living t in the United States; there are over 350 languages spoken (I did not know there were that many languages anywhere!); there are 281 Million people in the U.S. that are without the Gospel. That is why we support the North American Mission Board. A few weeks ago we put the “Make Jesus Known” North American Missions Prayer Guide in the worship bulletin. This is a wonderfully helpful guide to help us pray specifically for a few of our missionaries. Here is a number that will thrill you…O.K., at least make you a little impressed. This year we help sponsor 6,300 full time missionaries. Out of that number 3,300 are chaplains and 3000 are of various type of church planters, Evangelists, etc. That is why I do not hesitate inviting you to consider a financial gift to the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions. You can give on line at our church website or bring an offering any Sunday. If you do not have one of the Week of Prayer guides, please pick one up. The missionaries would love to know and believe they are being lifted to God in prayer.

HOLY WEEK STARTS THIS SUNDAY
I know it seems so incredibly quick, but this Sunday is Palm Sunday. The Children will help start our service with a praise and palm branch processional at the 11:00 service. Friday, March 29 at 7 PM we will have a Concert of Prayer. This will be a lovely and meaningful service a little different from our usual Good Friday service. It will include some interactive time for all who attend. And then Sunday, March 31 is Resurrection Sunday. Easter Sunday is a day of hope, a day of assurance, a day of rejoicing!

This Easter message will be “Do You Really Want To Grow Up?” It will be the official launch of our 40 Days of Prayer Campaign. We are thrilled that we have 20 small groups: our 9 Connection Groups that meet every Sunday and 11 (so far, but more are coming) new groups that will be meeting.

Listen to this. One of our volunteer Hosts is targeting several neighbors inviting them to participate. Perfect! Another Host has enlisted 11 from his ball team to form a group! Wow. I cannot wait to hear the stories of all He is doing!

I love our church family. What a privilege to work with our staff, our leadership teams and our church family and friends. See you Sunday, good Lord willing!

Pastor Tom

40 DAYS OF PRAYER…JUST AROUND THE CORNER

For the next few weeks you should be hearing your staff praise, promote and ask for participation in 40 Days of Prayer. This will be 40 Days of INTENTIONAL, CHURCH WIDE-STUDY ON THE POWER OF PRAYER to grow us closer to God individually, deeper in our connections with one another, and wider in our outreach to our friends and community.

Why do we choose 40 days and not 60 Days? For some reason, the Holy Spirit of God led the saints and heroes of the Bible to choose 40 days. The idea of 40 Days appears 24 times in the Bible. Noah was on the ark for 40 Days; Moses was on Mount Sinai receiving the 10 Commandments for 40 Days; Jesus was in the wilderness praying and fasting for 40 Days. Perhaps staying at something for 40 Days is a good way to start a new habit and to stop a bad one!

When Jesus’ disciples asked him to “teach us to pray” that was a golden ask! They had watched Him do mighty miracles and wonders…often first led by prayer. They saw many breakthroughs related to Jesus’ habit of prayer. “Teach us to pray” is a pretty good request. So, for the 40 Days following Easter, we will be echoing the request of the disciples: Jesus, teach us to pray. In 40 Days Nineveh had the chance to repent and was not destroyed. In 40 Days the spies of Israel were able to go into the Promised Land and see what God said would be their own land. What could God do with a people who spent 40 days asking Jesus to teach us to pray? Is there a breakthrough coming? Is there a trial or test like Jesus faced? Is this the next step of your spiritual journey of discipleship? I am so excited about the possibilities.

LET ME BREAK IT DOWN. There are 3 basic parts to this campaign. First, our worship service beginning the Sunday after Easter will all focus on prayer. I will have 6 sermons related to prayer in my teaching series. Second, there will be a teaching series, taught by Rick Warren, that you will work through with your small group. We will have over 10 brand new small groups meeting! We will provide, free of charge, one of the nicest, most helpful books on prayer that you have ever seen or used. You will get your prayer devotional book from your group HOST. Third, that prayer book will also have a daily devotional for you. It will consist of one verse a day for 40 days. It will ask you questions that will help you meditate and think about what these verses mean to you. We will provide you, free of charge, with a key ring with 6 verses and a few other free resources for you.

Imagine, the entire church family, all on the same page for 40 days. I think it will be fabulous. I hope you will consider joining a group if you are not in one already. Or perhaps you would be willing to open your home serving as a HOST.

See you this Sunday, good Lord willing!

Pastor Tom

HOW EXCITED AM I?

With the full and total support of our leadership team, we are in full on preparation mode for the upcoming Church-Wide 40 Days of Prayer. Starting March 31, Easter/Resurrection Sunday, we will be launching a 40 Day Prayer Campaign. Here is the mission statement for the 40 Days of Prayer Campaign: “40 Days of intentional church-wide study on the power of prayer to grow closer to God individually, deeper in our connections and wider in our outreach.

How will we do this? First we are praying for church wide alignment—as many people as possible participating. I will be preaching a series 7 sermons on some of the most often asked questions about prayer. Pastor David Martin will be building our worship services around each of the sermon topics.

Second, we will all be invited to be in a Connection Group for these 40 Days. We will be led in our lessons by Rick Warren. Each person in a small group will receive free of charge, a daily devotional book that you will use daily on your own and weekly as you meet with your group. Pastor Kyle will be coordinating that for us. We are praying for and working toward starting as many new Connection Groups as we currently have. That is a BHAG...a Big Hairy Audacious Goal!

Third, we will be asking each ministry team to put aside their regularly scheduled activities to make sure everyone can participate for 6 weeks in a Connection Group. So, individually, you will have a daily devotional guide focused on prayer. In your group, you will have a video presentation. The outlines for these presentations are found in your 40 Days of Prayer daily devotional book. As a congregation, we will be hearing 7 sermons all related to prayer.

There is more, but this will serve as a good introduction.

I am very excited about seeing our church family and friends align our effort and purpose that will help us be equipped and better prepared for prayer! We are going all in to make this a spiritual breakthrough event. Please join us in prayer for a moving of the Holy Spirit across our church family.


See you soon, good Lord willing


Pastor Tom

SO WHAT DID YOU THINK?

This past Sunday was probably your first time to hear our Associate Pastor Kyle Hooss preach. Some of our staff had heard him online at his former church when we were interviewing him. We knew he was solid. But now our church family had the opportunity to be blessed by his teaching/preaching message and style. Janie and I were gone for the weekend attending a Pastor/wife marriage enrichment retreat sponsored by The Charleston Baptist Association. I asked Kyle to fill in for me this past Sunday. He did the excellent job that I expected. Janie and I were on our way back from Myrtle Beach when we joined in the Livestream of our worship service. We loved that we could hear the music so wonderfully clear, we could hear the Welcome and Announcements by Kyle and the Mission and Ministry Moment by Logan all with amazing clarity. The livestream of Kyle’s message was just as clear as if we were in the worship center with you all. He delivered a strong message about “Partnering Together” based on Philippians 1:1-11. His opening illustration about Forrest Gump and Bubba was a great illustration for the message of having each other’s backs. Well done Kyle, well done.

By the way, let’s say that you happened to miss this past Sunday. You can still go to the JIBC –SC church app or to the church Facebook page and hear the message. You can go back and listen to any of the past sermons if you have a desire to do so. Please do not be too shy to ask for help if you do not know how to download or find the church app. A lot of us have to ask our kids or grandkids to help us out. Or ask one of the church staff to give you a hand. They will be so happy to do so. The church app has a lot of helpful information for you. Enjoy!

JIBC is so blessed. We have two staff members, Kyle and Logan, who are very gifted speakers. Kyle Hooss is our Associate Pastor of Administration and Connection Groups. Logan Duvall is our Student Pastor. Whenever I am away, we will rotate preaching responsibilities between the two of them. Some of you may remember the really old days where we had to go outside the church to find a guest speaker. Now we have two of the best right here at JIBC!

I am looking forward to seeing everyone this Sunday, February 25th. We will pick up our study through the Gospel of Mark just where we left off two Sundays ago.

See you Sunday, good Lord willing,

Pastor Tom

TWO REQUESTS FOR PRAYER

One of the things I like most about Facebook is the immediate access to a lot of family, friends and acquaintances. It is a fun way, most of the time, to keep up with people that you know and even some that I do not know. I can see pictures of the food they are eating, the vacations they have been on and the family they celebrate. Every now and again, I might have to remove someone from my friend list that is getting a little too rowdy or a bit too condemning. The one thing I like most about Facebook is that you can ask for prayer and have dozens, if not hundreds, of people say they will join you in prayer. I so love that. That can be something that unites us instead of something that divides us.

Today, I would like to ask for prayer for two events coming up. First, something that might be considered a rather selfish prayer request. Janie and I are going on a Pastor and Wife Marriage Enrichment Retreat. It is sponsored by the Charleston Baptist Association. Our Association is investing in strengthening Pastors as a way of also strengthening our churches. This is where I would usually tease and say “I look forward to dropping Janie off at this conference so she can get some things straight.” Those of you who know us have a pretty good idea which one of us needs to be straightened out! In our younger days, we would go every year to the Marriage Enrichment events at Ridgecrest, NC. One of our favorite people, Potts Wilburn use to say: “Tom, is your marriage that bad you have to go every year?” I would usually respond by saying “No sir, it is that good and I want to keep it that way!” That has not changed.

The second prayer request is for an upcoming church-wide leadership meeting. This meeting is scheduled for Wednesday, February 21 in the Genesis Classroom. A meal will be provided before the meeting. Pastor Kyle and our staff will be presenting the upcoming 40 Days of Prayer Campaign. I am so excited about this event. We are inviting all leaders to attend and be the first to hear what we believe can be a breakthrough for our church family and friends.

Two events, two requests for prayer, thanks in advance! After the approval and buy-in of our leadership, we will be presenting information from now until Easter’s Resurrection Sunday!

Can’t wait for our church family and friends to see it.

See you soon, good Lord willing,

Pastor Tom

 

CLASS 101: DISCOVERING MEMBERSHIP AT JIBC

Our next membership seminar will be taught on Sunday, February 25 starting at 4:00 PM. It has been quite a while since we had a membership class. Is it too late to blame it on Covid? LOL. I have no one to blame except me on this one! But now we are back in full swing and are looking forward to the next class. You can sign up several ways: the Information Insert in Sunday’s Bulletin call the church office at 843-762-0244 or text CLASS101 to 843-762-0244

At JIBC, we use Class 101: Discovering Membership as the way we join our church family. It gives us an opportunity to look at the DNA of our church family. It provides an opportunity for those who are at this next step an opportunity to meet with the pastor. I have material to present but we also have plenty of time for questions and answers.

If you are at the place in your spiritual journey where you would like to know more about JIBC, then this is the perfect next step for you. I would be honored for you to join us for a great time of fellowship and informative information. By the way, we will provide a meal and childcare for you.

It is a really good deal!

SUNDAY CELEBRATION

This past Sunday, we were thrilled with the start of a new Connection Group for Dads. Our Associate Pastor, Kyle, reached out to some dads and they responded wonderfully. He had a total of 15 dads in the room. First Sunday out, and he already is looking for a room with more space! Way to go Dads. By the way, I think the Dads Group was so successful because the Moms Bible Study Group was so successful. Kat Cumberledge and her team have been open and sensitive to the leading of the Spirit of God. May their tribe increase! Way to go Moms.

Looking forward to seeing you this Sunday as we continue going through the Gospel of Mark.

Pastor Tom