Pastor Tom's Journal

I was asked today a searching question: What are you going to do? My friend was referring to the struggles of pastoring a church in a declining neighborhood, hosting sevceral thriving ministries/congregations, collecting less and less financial help as the bills rise, and doing the work of a mission center while living the life of a small congregation. Here is our situation: We have a tiny church doing great work, influencing the city, ministering to many people, and struggling to survive. Every week, we touch lives - lives that do not bring in the resources to support the ministry, lives that are not ready for leadership at the level we need. What are we going to do? Well, we seem to have some orders in place and, I suppose, until they change, we will keep following them.

It was a pleasure to initiate the Fresno Quality of Life Initiative this week at the Fellowship of Joy. Darryl Curry will be leading our effort to rid our neighborhoods of unwanted grafitti. We will be there to remove the tags and hope to accomplish several things as a result: Number 1 - We are in this to love our neighbors. They have been victimized and we want to be part of restoring them. Thus, we share the love of Jesus. Number 2 - We want to restore the pride in community that is lost when vandalism takes over in a neighborhood. Number 3 - We want to serve. That is our calling. That is what our Master did and it is what we want to do with Him and for Him. Number 4 - We want to reach out to kids at risk for the "tagging" lifestyle and those engaged in it to show them that their are other and better ways to build upi their self-esteem, have a sense of belonging, and be loved. That is why we are doing this in conjunction with our Skate Church ministry which is about to laun...

The Fresno/Clovis Prayer breakfast was a tremendous opportunity to see the spiritual, business, political, and educational leadership of the city come together as one entity to pray for the welfare of the city, celebrate the accomplishments of the past, and be challenged to continue the taks of rebuilding the walls that are constantly being threatened by violence, addiction, and complacency. I did say complacency. We do like to congratulate ourselves and we have reason to. Fresno is a model of what positive things can happen when the faith community joins hands and hearts together to pray or the city and take its civic responsibilities city. In 14 years, Fresno moved from the least livable city in the country with the second highest murder rate to an All American City with vibrant inner city ministries, and safe and thriving downtown, and people of faith who care. But the mayor and police chief were correct to ask us not to grow satisfied. We have real problems at the street level and ...

Most of my journal entries are being made at my other site : pastortomsims.com, but I am going to be organizing things here at Blogger. Check my profile to see a list of the blogs I am setting up. Perhaps one will be interesting to you.

I need to start posting here and will make it one of my disciplines from this point on. My principle blog is The Dream Factory and I am quite involved with two CompuServe/Netscape forums and a number of Yahoo groups. Maybe today... maybe tomorrow ... I'll be back. In the meantime ...

We are up and running with our workshop, "The Road to Success." The responses are positive and we will soon be launching a monthly newsletter to clients and friends. Included wil be statistics, instructional previews, coments on whatever fancies me, quotes, recommended links, and recommended business opportunities. I am amazed at the results I am getting with mangosteen. The same is true with reports from my friends. This fruit has been used for centuries for its healing properties and has recently come to market in the U.S.. There is more information on my site: http://tbs.natureswellnesssecret.com . Our church is holding its Spring Festival Saturday and it wil probably be our biggest block party ever. We'll give you a report next week. I a wrapping up te final chapters to "The Confidence Factor." Based upon relections on the book of Philippians, it is an amplification of the truth: I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. Well, that should bri...

Time passes on. We can't stop it, slow it down, or ignore its passage for long. Yet, time never fails. It always gets at least a C+. It's people who fail - people like me, people who fail to see time for what it is, people who are in denial about time, and people who just don't notice or care. We fail and then we fail again. The challenge is to appreciate time spent, grieve time wasted, and cherish the time that is now while embracing time yet to come.

I am pretty new at this, but I have a lot to say. Bear with me as I learn to say it as well as possible. I am sure the whole thing will evolve into whatever it is going to be. My name is Pastor Tom. I pastor a small urban church in the heart of Fresno with three congregations in one setting. Two are English, one Spanish, and another Hmong. We have a missional vision for our community and world. It is quite exciting. I am middle aged - about to turn 50 which means many things including a sigmoidoscopy (SIC ? - Actually, I don't really need to know). I have a wife and two grown sons. I write for publication - but the best is yet to come. I operate a business where I empower people to start businesses. Now, all of that is quite boring, but it is a start. Let's stay in touch - assuming you are out there. I promise to read my material.