Wow! What a Pastors Appreciation Day we experienced at Oasis World Outreach in Zephyrhills, FL today! The service began with roaring worship time led by the youth group, Restoration. Then, after a short praise and worship time (ending with a wonderful song of worship, so anointed, ushering in the Spirit of God), Pastor Bishop Mike Sloan turned the service over to Pastor Jason Smith, the Music Pastor, who first gave what you might call a roast to Pastors Mike and Tena Sloan, with some hilarious episodes from the past that he had to explain, Hey its a Joke!. He then talked a few minutes about how Pastor Sloan showed the heart of a true pastor by following the Word and Examples of God; first using the story in John 21 about Jesus asking Peter, Do you love me? and when Peter said Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee, three times, Jesus told him (1) Feed my lambs, (2) Feed my sheep, (3) Feed my sheep. Pastor Jason went on to give scriptural ways to feed the sheep, as in the great commandment to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart..., then through the Word of God, as in Heb. 4:12-13, through teaching the Word of God, and through living through the Spirit (Rom. 8:13). The last point Pastor Jason gave was we have been led and fed by submitting to one another. The Church is the body of Christ, and we receive spiritual nourishment from one another! Then, Pastor Mike turned the service over to the Youth Pastor, Rich Jividen, and for the next 20-30 minutes, we watched and experienced the exuberance of the Restoration group of teen agers, skits and personal testimonies that almost blew us away. They have only been home a few days from a life-changing time in Cleveland, TN, taking part in Perry Stones recent conventon at COG Headquarters in Cleveland, TN. This youth group,Restoration, was selected one out of 17 youth groups in the COG to participate at this convention. They came in fourth (only one point away from being third!). Wow! Im sharing some snapshots taken this morning of all this excitement. To explain the Lions Head caricature, this was done by the youth, each participating by putting some of the color of the mane around the outline of the face, but no one knew what it was -- when they had finished, Pastor Jividens wife, Tracey, came up and the group gathered around the poster, hiding what she was doing -- she filled in the face of the lion, and wrote Lambs Become Lions on the bottom of the board, illustrating the influence of Pastor Mike on the youth of the church.... you had to have been there, folks! The last snapshot shows Pastors Mike and Tena, with Maddy Smith, the daughter of the late Pastor Neil Smith, and Julie Smith, who had around her shoulders the Kenyan country flag (she wore this countrys flag by choice in honor of her dad who dearly loved to minister in Kenya) while other youth wore other foreign flags at the end of a skit), and Pastor Tena was explaining how she felt when she saw her and this flag, that she could hear a lions roar, and her heart was stirred with the desire to return to Africa -- they hope to make a trip some time this year. Sorry for the length of this outline, but this is only part of the story..... again, you just had to have been there! Thanks, Pastors Mike and Tena, for 19 years of service at Oasis World Outreach!
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 21:33:59 +0000
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