Posted by tom865 on March 21, 2009
At my job I enjoy having Fridays off (we are on a 4 – 10 schedule). My mom was free yesterday also, so we spent the day together. First we went to a Mexican Restaurant in my hometown of Clinton.
I had a chicken chimichanga for lunch. It was delish!
My mom had the chicken salad.
We went to see our dear friend Mary Hamilton to do some church work. Later on, her husband, Jeff, got home from his job (did I mention I love 4-10’s?!).
This picture is Jeff & Mary in their recently finished home. It’s beautiful!
The picture above is characteristically Jeff. He’s quite a jokester! Mary is generally fairly serious, but you can see the sort of effect Jeff has on her! Seriously, every church needs to have a Jeff & Mary Hamilton. They always make people feel at home, and they take on all those very important little things that nobody notices but must be done.
Then, my Mom and I had dinner at Red Lobster.
I had the bacon wrapped scallops and bourbon BBQ shrimp!
Posted in daily happenings | Tagged: 4-10's, chicken, chimichanga, church work, Friday, Mexican food, Red Lobster, scallops, shrimp | Leave a Comment »
Posted by tom865 on November 25, 2008
Last Sunday was a big day at the Clinton First Wesleyan Church. We had the Ladies Trio from Kentucky Mountain Bible College sing for us during the service. This is one of the best groups from KMBC I’ve ever heard. I enjoyed the song selection and the very nice harmony presented by the Ladies Trio. I enjoyed seeing the trio and their PR guy. I saw the trio this year at our Tennessee District Family Camp. Their PR guy is Randy Huff whom I’ve known and have seen at various places including ayc, youth retreats, & camps. It’s always a pleasure to see him! After the service we had our annual Thanksgiving Meal. Many of my most favorite dishes were there like my Mom’s Robert Redford Cake (tastes as good as the actor acts lol), and her sweet potato casserole. Some other favorites were some good mashed potatoes, stuffing, some great, moist turkey, and egg rolls! Oh, and the desserts were great! I tasted a really good spicy pumpkin pie!
Below are a few pictures from the day:
KMBC Ladies Trio (l-r) Ruth, Shianne, & Deanna
This is Randy Huff the PR guy for KMBC. It’s always a joy to see him!
Here are our church people in line at our Thanksgiving Meal
Here’s some of the outstanding desserts! My Mom’s Robert Redford Cake is at the bottom left of this picture. Mmm Mmm, good!
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Posted by tom865 on October 21, 2008
On Thursday through Saturday of this weekend I was privileged to travel with seven of the youth pastors and youth leaders from our district to the Wesleyan Youth Leaders Initiative: FUEL!! I really enjoyed every aspect of the conference. I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with a great group of guys and one lady (no, she didn’t stay in the guy’s rooms – her husband and she stayed with family) from our district. They did a very good job of keeping me laughing more often than not. I enjoyed the worship music provided by Dustin & Miriam Ah Kuoi from our 12 Stone Wesleyan Church. I absolutely loved the messages by all the session speakers including Kevin Myers, pastor of the 12 Stone Church, and Scott Simmons, General Director of Wesleyan Youth. One of the special things this weekend was networking with so many different youth pastors & leaders from all types of backgrounds. Our leaders were able to network with (these are the ones I can think of) Kevin Myers, Scott Simmons, Charlie Alcock (one of the most gifted veterans in the Wesleyan Church youth – writer, event specialist, media, professor at IWU), the middle school director at Kentwood Community Church, & Matt Leroy (another one of our gifted veterans of Wesleyan youth ministry and church planter). All the breakout sessions were outstanding, particularly the one by Matt LeRoy which dealt with the topic “Accountability doesn’t work…”. If you’re curious you’ll just have to watch the video in a later post. I included some pictures from the trip below. Stay tuned for video.
This is our Nashville First Wesleyan Church where Pastor Brian and I picked up some of the leaders. They were playing on ps2 in this picture.
These are the youth leaders eating at Red Robin Restaurant. From left to right is Pastor David Gould, Pastor Brian Taylor, Vince Sedman, Gene Schwartz, Josh Slaughter, & Kim Slaughter
This is me with the Red Robin mascot!
This is the youth pastor I work with, Brian Taylor. He was always excited to get the monopoly pieces at McDonalds!
These were our youth leaders with the crowd at one of the general sessions
These were the worship leaders from 12 Stone church
Our youth pastors and leaders from our district
This is the exterior of the Wesleyan Church General Headquarters
This was a shot of Louisville on our way back from FUEL!
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Posted by tom865 on October 11, 2008
For three years now I have been involved with an outstanding youth ministry called Appalachian Youth Camp, one of the organizations under Appalachian Youth Ministries. It has been an exciting and fun-filled experience that somehow gets better every year! For more information about this ministry visit http://www.aymonline.org. There will be a link on this page to Appalachian Youth Camp. Here is a message about Appalachian Youth Camp from the Camp President, Ray McCrary.
Since 1982, Appalachian Youth Camp has provided thousands of young people with the ultimate summer experience. Being with friends, playing sports and activities and being actively engaged in ministry are just a few of the highlights of this week-long event. AYC is also a place where many young people begin their spiritual journey. The staff and administration are firmly committed to making Appalachian Youth Camp a place where the spiritual, physical, social and mental needs of youth will be met.
Join us in Roxbury, PA for AYC 2009!
Last year before this camp I had the distinct privilege of editing a video that was used on opening night of camp. I hope you enjoy.
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Posted by tom865 on September 29, 2008
We really had an outstanding Homecoming at my church yesterday! We were privileged to have Josh Garner with us. Josh Garner is the former lead singer for the Florida Boys. I enjoyed his blending of good Southern Gospel music with the classic hymns of the church. On the final number, Josh coaxed our two pastors, Ben Peak & Brian Taylor, upon the stage for a very impromptu trio. The results were hilarious! After the service we had the Homecoming Meal. Their was a ton of food and it was all very good. It’s just too bad I couldn’t eat everything that was there, but everything I had was really good! Here are a few pics from the service and the meal:
Josh Garner, former lead singer for the Florida Boys
This was the impromptu trio at the end of the concert with Pastor Brian Taylor on the left, Josh in the middle, & Pastor Ben on the right.
This was the long line comprising our Homecoming Meal. It was all very good!
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Posted by tom865 on September 23, 2008
I just discovered tonight that I am on Byron Gurnee’s blogroll! I thought I would return the favor by linking to one of his posts that I found very interesting tonight. The post has an article by Keith Drury, one of my favorite writers. Click here to read it!
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Posted by tom865 on June 26, 2008
Last week I was privileged to go to the Tennessee District Wesleyan Youth Camp! This camp is always a highlight of the year for me and for the past several years I have taken a week of vacation to go. I really enjoyed nearly every aspect of camp including the messages, worship, playing & interacting with a great group of well-behaved, nice, interesting (hehe) and spiritually-minded teens, & working with a great group of workers including our district youth president, David Gould and wife Becky, my pastor Ben Peak, & youth pastor Brian Taylor (I worked primarily with him to develop and enhance the technology aspect of the services), evangelist Luke Ramey, worship leaders Kory Wheeler & Jay Woodward (along with Luke form the band “This Is Luke”), a skit and recreation team from Southern Wesleyan University, and all the youth leaders, volunteers, pastors, and youth pastors from the churches across the district. It was great to see all of you that I have known before, and it was great to meet several new faces as well! Here are a few pictures and a link to an album of all my pictures at the end:
this is the game where your teammates try to throw the hula hoop around you!!
These very sweet young ladies are Tabitha (our dyp’s daughter) holding Quintana (our very cute pastor’s daughter)
playing volleyball!
I believe he made this shot!
This is our speaker Luke Ramey
This was Jacob from my church! He was selected Most Improved Camper this year!!
This is the reason we have youth camp: Teens getting closer to God!
An outstanding worship service
This is our District Youth President, David Gould
This is Melody & Gene our camp sweethearts: can you tell they love each other?
This is several of our teens at the annual banquet on the last full day of camp!
Here’s the entire album on facebook
Posted in events, youth | Tagged: events, Tennessee District, Wesleyan Church, youth, youth camp | Leave a Comment »
Posted by tom865 on April 21, 2008
This past weekend I was very privileged to be part of the live taping / concert featuring The Collingsworth Family at the beautiful historic Music Hall in Cincinnati. Now, sometimes when I am really looking forward to something exciting, I am just a tad disappointed that it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. But, there was none of that with this concert.
First of all: Music Hall! It was stunningly gorgeous. Beautiful artwork, gigantic chandeliers, stunning architecture, enormous seating area (and many of those seats were filled). This venue was a first class establishment.
Second of all: everybody that was there. I was hoping that I would get to see a few of my friends, but I wasn’t sure if they would be too busy though. I got to see everybody I was hoping to see: My former pastor Troy Keaton and his family – Troy, Janel, Natalie, Allyson, TJ, & Trevor! It was sooooooooooooo good to see all of them again. I also loved seeing several more of the Keaton “clan:”(let me try to remember everybody) Dr. James & Caroline (sp?) Keaton, Jeff Keaton, Ray Cragun, Jimmy Keaton (I think that’s everybody). Others friends I got to see included Bo Thacker, Charlotte Frederick, Connie Hilligoss, Justin Hilligoss, Brandon Hilligoss, RuthAnn Glaser (who I hadn’t met in person up until this time – I know her from a message board I’m on called My Holiness .com), & former church teen who is now going to GBS: Darnelle Wilson! I was really surprised to see long time friends from Hephzibah Children’s Home David & Shirley Duncan! I hope I remembered everybody. Of course, I got to see some of The Collingsworths in the crowd as well!
I saved the best for last: The Collingsworth Concert. Brooklyn knocked us dead (in a good sort of way)! Wow, what a dynamic voice. I enjoyed the talent & the songs (some of which I’ve had in my mind all day yesterday & today) of the different groups. We got to hear Phil, Kim, & Brooklyn together. The songs which the whole family sings are great as well. There were a few new combinations (of different family members) at this concert, too. That was really cool. I really enjoyed the violins masterfully played by Brooklyn & Courtney. Olivia’s solo taken from one of my all time favorite movies (referring to Favorite Things in the movie The Sound of Music) was quite a treat! But, you can’t talk about a Collingsworth concert without talking about Kim’s piano playing! In two words: phenomenal mastery! In my humble opinion, she is the best Southern Gospel pianist out there today! Truly, she is on the same level as Dino Kartsonakis, another of my all time favorite pianists! I really enjoyed the interviews with Kim’s family, and the family “choir” was really good.
Here are some photos I took before & during the evening:
Posted in events | Tagged: concerts, The Collingsworth Family | 1 Comment »
Posted by tom865 on April 19, 2008
I used to be on blogger, but I didn’t care for the formatting of pictures on it. Hence, I’m trying out wordpress. Today I’m traveling to Cincinnati for a very special concert & live taping of The Collingsworth Family! I’ll be filling everybody in on this exciting weekend for my Mom and I!!
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