Pastor Tom's Journal

A Little Searching and we caught up with Jess Moody. Thanks to Natala for drawing him into cyberspace (though I suspect he is there all the time). And that has made all the difference. : "what is the emerging church? Postmodernity" : "Anonymous said... Noted that you mentioned me. Doris and I are retired, but working all the time. Old Jess Moody is eighty, and preaching every Sunday, and will be teaching at Palm Beach Atlantic (The university I founded 38 years ago.)Everything is great. We were blown out of our condo on the seventeenth floor, and are now living happily in a new condo here in West Palm Beach. Thanks for quoting me. Love to you, and praying deep, healing prayers in your behalf. I am expecting a miracle. You are special...Jess Moody, 3630 Whitehall Drive, W. Palm Beach, FL"

Moody Blog: Jessays Jess Moody last posted here in March, but it is worth reading - anything by Jess Moody is worth reading/hearing/celebrating.

It is good to see my friend's life remembered anywhere in the blogsphere. Thanks for the tribute: http://collectingmythoughts.blogspot.com/2004/02/238-keep-your-friendsthe-columbus.htm l My own offering is on my principle blog: Georgia on Pastortomsims.com

(Jeremiah 31:3 KJV) The LORD hath appeared of old unto me, saying, Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee. Everlasting love. It is as much of a quality as it is an expression of duration. In fact, what makes God’s love endure is that it is durable, patient, passionate, and aggressive. That is the character of His love. God actively pursues the object of His love in the way described by Francis Thompson in his immortal poem, “The Hound of Heaven.” God appears to us of old with this romantic word of wooing, He has been loving us all along. It is new only by its freshness. “Yes, I have loved you …” He affirms with conviction and passion, “and my love never ends.” Not only does He love us, but He courts us. With loving kindness He reaches out to us and draws us to Himself. Loving kindness is an inadequate English translation of a Hebrew word, which is best translated, “covenant love.” It means that God’s own characte...

Real Heroes are Overcomers! 32 And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets, 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. – (Hebrews 11:32-34 , The Message, Copyright 2002, Eugene Peterson ) People who overcome great obstacles make great heroes. We stand back observing their lives and find hope that we can also overcome. People who seemingly live without problems offer us little encouragement. In our ignorance of their true struggles, we chalk up their successes to luck, privilege, or fate. The heroes of faith were people who faced tragedy, distress, doubts, and even disaster. Staring death in the face, the heroes of the Old Testament harbored a hope that Go...

Just Charlie: It's a Movie, For Crying Out Loud... Charlie makes a good point. I've blogged on this phenomenon at pastortomsims.com . Specifically, I wrote a resource article called Da Vinci Codes and Overloads and another related to some of the issues raised by the film/book: This Article . Finally, I was surprised and amused that more Christians take the "Code" seriously than non-Christians as evidenced by two polls on the Religion and Christian Fellowship Forums. Check the results. They might be informative. I will be posting this at pastortomsims.com as well.

Time has eyes. In this case, it is I-Z-E: Sanitize Prioritize Optimize Strategize Energize I could throw in a few more just to be cute and thorough, but these may do. We can revisit categorize, synthesize, and scutinize later. (c) 2006, Thomas B. Sims

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.