Fresh Thoughts from Sunday

Yesterday was a great day at Suncoast Baptist Church, and here are a few of my fresh thoughts from the day.

Praise Team

I am so thankful for all of the faithful servants involved in the praise team. They practice consistently, and they really add a great dynamic to our worship services. Thanks for all your hard work praise team!

Touching Tomorrow Together

Can you believe that our Touching Tomorrow Together campaign was 5 months ago? That is so hard to believe! It is amazing that we have raised over $70,000.00 since then. I am so excited about paying off our building and beginning the next steps of growth!

Youth Group Sunday School

In Sunday School we summarized the book of Song of Solomon. We decided on the statement: “A love story between Solomon and Shulie (the shulamite woman), to show Gods love for us”

Baptism

4 Baptisms!!! It is so amazing! I may be biased, but I thought it was amazing that our teen ministry was the main influencer in 3 out of the 4 baptisms! Praise God! I am so glad he is using our youth ministry to accomplish great things!

Youth Band

Last night was a blast! I love leading worship with the teenagers! I have been nervous about some of the teenagers graduating and moving on, but it has been wonderful to see some of the other teens rise up and learn new things so that they can fill in the gap. Great job Jake, Lucy, and Jonathan!!

Missions

The missionaries last night were such a blessing! Did you notice that the size of India is 1/4th the size of America? But, the population of America is 1/4th the size of India’s population! What a mission Field! 1.2 BILLION PEOPLE! That just knocked my socks off! I am excited that bro. Winston has the chance to go back to live among his people and share the gospel with them!

Personal Growth

God really spoke to me last night about my comfort zone. I committed to Him again that I am willing to leave and go wherever he will lead me and my family. I would love to serve Him in another country and in another culture! Where he leads, I will follow! 🙂

What are some of your own FRESH THOUGHTS from yesterday?

A Walk Through The Bible… PART 1

I have often been bothered by Sunday School. In my experience growing up, there were many different churches that I was a part of, both big and small, where the Sunday School program was simply a mini church service before the real church service. Frankly, I never understood the purpose of it. I did not appreciate getting up extra early to attend a lower quality and less organized mini church service where we sing, take an offering, go over announcements, and listen to a message, before the “real” main service where we did the same thing again. In fact, as I try to remember the lessons that I learned in Sunday School growing up, I realized that a lot of time was wasted.

In my opinion, Sunday School should exist for one main reason: DISCIPLESHIP

Sunday School should be a time and a place to LEARN about Gods word. Not necessarily to be preached to, the pastor is already going to take care of that, but it is an opportunity to teach our Biblically illiterate world about the Bible. Hence the name: Sunday School.

At Suncoast Youth Group we take this seriously, in fact, we are methodically walking through every book of the Bible memorizing a concise summary about each book. Each Sunday morning we fellowship for a bit, and then we go through the books of the Bible. Many have asked about our list of books and the summaries we have chosen. I have basically read John Phillips commentary and chosen something very similar to his summary. I would never claim that these are comprehensive summaries, but they are definitely more thorough than most people in our church would know. Most of our teenagers are learning more about Gods word each Sunday than I knew even after four years of Bible College, and we do it in a relevant, fun, and exciting method of learning. I am so proud of our teenagers, and I am thankful that they are so diligently learning about God’s word!

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Genesis: Creation, Fall, Flood, Babel, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph

Exodus: Getting God’s people out of Egypt

Leviticus: Getting Egypt out of God’s people

Numbers: Census, Complaining, Change

Deuteronomy: Moses Preaches: Backwards look, Inwards look, Forward look, Upward look

Joshua: Authority Change, Battle, Conquer, Divide

Judges: Judges

Ruth: Kinsman Redeemer / a Romance between Ruth and Boaz

1st & 2nd Samuel: Eli, Samuel, GIVE US A KING, Saul, David

1st & 2nd Kings: One nation divided into Israel (North) / Judah (South)

1st & 2nd Chronicles: A Parallel to I and II Kings but from Gods perspective

Ezra: The Second Exodus

Nehemiah: Gods people build a wall

Esther: Esther, Mordecai, Haman, Gallows

Job: He Had it all, Lost it all, Gave God the Glory, Got it all back

Psalms: Psalms, Hymns, and Spiritual Songs

Proverbs: Practical Wisdom for all ages, comparing the wise and the foolish

Ecclesiastes: vanity of vanities: All is vanity / He had it all, and it was not worth it.

The greatest thing about this study, is that the teenagers did not just memorize a list of information, but they use the list of information to explain the story of the entire book in their own words. I tell our teenagers that they know more about the Bible than their parents do. Is that the case in your home? Get studying Gods word! Sunday School teachers? Let’s not waste time!

Liberty Baptist Fellowship Pastor Scholarship – Liberty University

This site has moved to www.leetomlin.com

Please follow this link to see a more updated post about the Liberty Baptist Fellowship Pastors Scholarship

http://leetomlin.com/?p=547

The most common excuse that I hear in regards to why pastors do not continue their education once they are plowing through the ministry is because they are too busy and there is just not enough time. The second reason that I have heard is that the cost of seminary is just too expensive. I know that both of those are huge factors in whether or not pastors are able to continue in their advanced learning. But what if the cost was not an issue? Do you think you could make the time to work on a class here and there if the cost were drastically reduced? How about a 100% scholarship?

Jerry Falwell and the Liberty Baptist Fellowship have offered a 100% scholarship for any full-time pastors of any LBF supporting baptist church. This is a remarkable blessing that many pastors have already taken advantage of, and many full time pastors are currently working through, including myself.

About two years ago I began looking for information about this scholarship by searching for information online and asking other pastor friends who were already taking advantage of this scholarship. I was shocked at how hard it was to find information about this scholarship considering the incredible blessing it has been. Eventually, I made it through the sign-up process and I am now taking classes online working on my Master of Divinity degree.

I decided to use my blog this month to share the process I went through so that others who are interested can find everything they need on this page to begin the registration process and get on the waiting list to begin the process of growing through advanced degree courses.

* For an info page about the Liberty Baptist Fellowship CLICK HERE 

* To read more information about the LBF Scholarship CLICK HERE

* To fill out the Partner Application for the LBF Scholarship CLICK HERE

In short, to be supported by this scholarship one must be on full-time staff at a church of like faith that would completely agree with the Baptistic doctrine found HERE. The church of that pastor must support the Liberty Baptist Fellowship $100.00 per month for each pastor receiving the scholarship. Before you will be eligible for classes you will be placed on a waiting list. I signed up a year and a half ago and waited on the waiting list for 10 months.

If you have any more questions about this incredible blessing you can contact the LBF by clicking HERE.

This has become another one of the greatest blessing of my life and I am thrilled to be able to share this opportunity with you. Please comment below if you were able to use this information for anything. Thank you!

Wilds or Bust!!

This is a blog that we wrote for our church last year to share specifically, how to pray for our teenagers and sponsors while at camp. The information is still completely relevant! Please pray for us! Thank you!

 

Well today is Friday and we will be heading to the Wilds in just about 48 hours. I cannot express my excitement in words. We have gone two other years since I have been the youth pastor at Suncoast Baptist Church, but for some reason there is a little bit more excitement this time than before. I believe it has something to do with the fact that God has really been working in our youth ministry and in our church for the last two months in a very special way, and I believe that God has been preparing hearts and futures for this week.

I have been begging our church to pray for our teens for the upcoming week and if you are reading this before camp, or during camp then I ask you as well to lift up this week of camp in prayer. Here are some things you can pray about.

Pray for Safety

We are leaving Sunday night after church around 9:00pm and we will be driving overnight in 4 large passenger vans. It is a 12 hour drive , so please pray that we will get to camp safely with no issues at all. We will leave the camp on Saturday morning around 8:00am and we will be driving all day long to arrive back at the church sometime around 10pm or so.

Pray for Good Attitudes

We are traveling for a long time with 49 people. There will definitely be frustrating issues and stressful situations, so please pray for our teenagers and our chaperones that we will all be long-suffering and very patient.

Pray for Tender Hearts

God will do the greatest work in the teenager that has the most responsive heart. I believe that God will change our teenagers and our church and our city if our teenagers will soften their hearts to the Lord and completely surrender to Him.

Pray for Salvation

We are taking several teenagers that have not began a relationship with Christ. Please pray (especially on Wednesday) that they will clearly hear the gospel and turn to Christ. PRay that their salvation will be powerful, memorable, and genuine!

Pray for God’s Calling

I believe that God will call some of our teenagers to attend Bible college, and some even into full time service into the ministry. Pray that our teenagers will see that not only as an option, but as an honor and a privelege.

If you have not been praying, please start right now. We are leaving in a short time, and it is going to be the best week of some of these teenagers lives. I know that the summer that I graduated from High School, I went to the Wilds, and that week was the turning point in my life. I know that God wants many more turning points this next week!

Thanks for reading! Now Pray! 🙂