A New Opportunity for Renewal & Revitalization for Pastor and Church

Hal Sexton is pictured here with his wife, Denise, and their four children, Emily, Melanie, Gracie and David. He comes to a church which began a revitalization process twenty-one months ago. Pastor Hal recently served ten years as pastor of West Thonotossasa and resigned to take a renewal sabbatical. God has called a pastor and a church in which both are in a renewal or revitalization process. It will be exciting to continually report what God will be doing in their lives as God guides in their renewal process.

One of the things Pastor Hal has brought to our attention that made such an impact on his renewal was the "Exchanged Life Conference" led by John Woodward of Grace Fellowship International out of Pigeon Forge, TN. Hal and Denise attended this conference during his sabbatical and found it to be life changing. Pastor Hal and Berea are bringing this conference to our community on July 17 & 18. It sounds very exciting as it is set to bring joy and renewal to the lives of God's ministers and their families. We pray the Holy Spirit would use this time to bring renewal to all of us. (Information about the conference is on a brochure prepared by the Sextons and is available on our web site, http://www.shilohba.org/ .

A Vision to Reach East Hillsborough County
I invite all of our churches to join in the launching of the vision to witness to every Resident of East Hillsborough County and beyond by members of the churches of our Association.

Let us join with the vision of witnessing to every resident of East Hillsborough County and beyond! Dr. Michael Lewis announced to his congregation Sunday evening that launching the Sunday School Faith Evangelism emphasis begins in August. Michael has been one of the leading pastors in the SBC using the FAITH evangelism approach. A few of our pastors are using or are trained in FAITH. Dr. Benny Keck, pastor FBC Dover, has used it continually in his leadership. Their church has effectively grown and reached new people for Christ over his nine years as pastor. Michael shared with me that he would love to have all pastors interested in beginning the program in their church to come to a getting acquainted lunch, on Thursday, July 23, at FBC Plant City. Doug Williams will be guest for the lunch. Michael and Doug will be leading a FAITH Training event July 23 - 25th. He invites any pastor interested to come and be trained in FAITH. This is an exciting local opportunity to get to know and use this evangelism approach in our churches. I remember when Pastor Bobby Welch, FBC Daytona, launched this new evangelism method at his church and made it available for pastors in the 1990's. It was most costly to travel and get the training. Now it has been brought to Plant City. Even Bobby Welch, former president of our SBC and founder of FAITH Sunday School Evangelism will be coming, August 16th at 6:30 pm to challenge people in the Sunday School Evangelism. What an opportunity for our churches to share the vision of witnessing to every resident of East Hillsborough County and beyond!

Vacation Bible School

We are excited that several of our churches are having Vacation Bible School this month. This week Bethany, Northside, West Thonotosassa. We are preparing for a mission VBS in our Association building. We had a work day this past Saturday from 9:00 am - 6:30 pm., and next Saturday, 9:00 am - 1:00 pm our Mission Church, Free Riders Fellowship, will have another work day getting ready for VBS.

Why is VBS so exciting even with all the tremendous work involved? Southern Baptist research has revealed that Vacation Bible School is the most strategic outreach tool for our churches to reach children and young families for Christ. In 2008, 2.8 million people were enrolled in VBS. Eighty-eight thousand decisions for Christ were reported. Thirty-seven thousand were enrolled in Sunday School. Twenty-six percent of baptisms were the result of Vacation Bible School.

A part of my journey is to get pictures and reports from the different VBS's going on in our churches. Thanks for helping by e-mailing pictures and updates to me at dmorris@shilohba.org .