Last night, Fellowship Baptist Church of Salisbury, Maryland, the church where I serve as Pastor, hosted the Bob Jones University Musical Ministry Team.
While we were down a little in attendance, the service went very nice as the team sang, played their instruments, and gave testimonies regarding God's working in their lives. Mr. Jon Reddick also delivered a short sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 and the value of love.
I appreciate the fact that the various Fundamental colleges and universities are willing to send their teams to small churches like ours. Since I have been down here in Salisbury, we have had the privilege of hosting teams from Bob Jones University, Maranatha Baptist Bible College, and Northland Baptist Bible College. Each time they have come it has been a blessing to our church and they have all represented their schools well.
While some might say that because we do not have a lot of teenagers, yet, in our church that these teams are wasting their times (after all, surely the justification for teams like this comes in part from the fact that they help to recruit teens to their respective schools). However, I appreciate the fact that the teams have not given that impression, but have instead taken an interest and talked with our folks and took the opportunity to minister to those who were there.
While we do have a few teens (and I praying that God would lead them towards a good solid Fundamental college), the reality is that by coming to a church like ours with very few teens, these teams are also helping to form a positive view of their schools in the lives of the parents and younger children - something that may indeed help in their enrollment down the road.
Anyway, I just wanted to take the time to encourage Pastors out there to host these teams when they are in your area and I wanted to say "thank you for coming" to Jon, Deb, Katie, Kimmy, James and Joey. Have a safe tour.
Just my thoughts,
Frank
Comparing the Scandinavian Countries
4 years ago
5 comments:
Pastor Sansone,
It was good to be at your church! We thoroughly enjoyed it. The taco salad was great too. And Dan, you know, relatively often I'm surprised the school lets me do this, and for similar reasons to yours!
Joey Hoelscher
Pastor Greenfield,
I remember meeting you at the ACCC. Thanks for the encouragement regarding the FFBC Blog.
I never thought about the "exposure to smaller churches" aspect of traveling on a team like this, but now that you mention it, some of the home churches of the teams were major Fundamental churches, such as Mount Calvary Baptist Church (Greenville), Burge Terrace Baptist Church (Indianapolis) and First Baptist Church of Troy (MI).
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
In Christ,
Pastor Frank Sansone
Joey,
Wow! Thanks for stopping by. It was great to have you guys here on Thursday night. Y'all did a great job and I know our folks were encouraged, challenged and blessed. (Don't you like the way I incorporated the northern second person plural "you guys" and the southern second person plural "y'all" in the same response so as to not offend either the southern or northern team members :) ).
You will be visiting the two churches and Christian schools were I served previously over the next few weeks, as well as the churches of some other friends in ministry. I pray that you have safety as you travel and that God continues to work and through you as you travel.
In Christ,
Pastor Frank Sansone
When our sons were 8 and 10 when we first started attending an IFB Church (Highlands Baptist in Littleon, CO). After seeing BJU ministry teams a few times, they both decided they wanted to attend BJU. We had never even heard of BJU until then.
Today, they both have undergrad and grad degrees in music from BJU and they are both working on graduate programs in the BJU seminary.
Anonymous,
Thanks for stopping by and for the comment.
I know that my 10 year old is favorable towards BJU and MBBC because of the influence of the teams that we have had so far.
Post a Comment