Hey Folks, checking in after an eventful week at the Southern Baptist Convention.  First of all, I want to thank the church for giving me the opportunity to represent them at this annual event. 

A couple of weeks ago, I got a letter from the Kentucky Baptist Convention congratulating Spring Bayou for being one of the top 100 churches in the state of Kentucky in Baptisms.  Monday morning I sat in on a Pastoral luncheon where our church was given another recognition.  Spring Bayou was celebrated as having record VBS growth in the last five years.  As a matter of fact, with churches who have a Vacation Bible School attendance of 100 or more, Spring Bayou was among the top 100 churches in the entire Southern Baptist Convention.  They also recognized churches that had phenomenal growth in VBS with less than 100 in attendance.  Spring Bayou was only 1 of 13 Kentucky churches who had accomplished this.  Let’s take a moment to praise God BIG TIME!!!!  Remember anything that is good is because of HIM, we are nothing compared to his SOMETHING.  Can I get an Amen!!!

Sunday and Monday were filled with the events of the Pastor’s Conference.  It was a blessing for Leah and me.  This gives me a chance to get fed, instead of doing the feeding.  The Pastor’s conference is basically two full days of preaching and worship.  14 sermons in two days with singing in between, and you thought an hour and 15 minutes was long with me…lol.  

Before I forget, Sunday Afternoon before the evening messages, we were privileged to see an early screening of the movie “Fireproof”, coming in a few months.  It was awesome.  This is the next movie from Sherwood Baptist Church, you remember “Facing the Giants” and “Flywheel”.  Last year, I started a marriage enrichment ministry we nicknamed the “M.E.S.S.”.  We met for a few weeks then attendance fell off and I began going through my early back problems, which left me limping for a month.  This movie needs to be seen of every couple wanting to find renewed strength in their marriage.  This may be a good jump start on renewing couple’s ministry in our church.  Due to the lead character being a firefighter, I can think of a few guys who might want to see it, “Chuck”.I felt led to vote for Johnny Hunt for President of the SBC.  He won!!!  For those of you familiar with the history of Upward Basketball, you would know that Johnny Hunt gave an inspiring message that led Caz McCaslin to beginning this wonderful ministry that we now have.  On Tuesday, on behalf of our church, I was invited to a luncheon with Johnny Hunt, Caz, and other Upward churches.  I got to see Lance, our first Upward Representative.  He ran an upward ministry in Eddyville then became employed by them.  He stressed an increased need to reach Ballard County with Upward, where there are no churches offering it.

HERE’S A NOTE FROM CANDY AND ERIC LAWRENCE ON THE EVENTS OF THEIR WEEK

Wow, God has been at work!  A week ago Thursday is how long Eric has been in the hospital.  Seems as our days are starting to run together.  First let me say I send out a Great Big Thank You to each and everyone of our Spring Bayou family.  Eric and I have been members of Spring Bayou for approximately a year.  In this year God has shown us what it is like to really have a church family that prays for us, loves us and will be there in our time of need.  I have been in awe over the wonderful gestures we have received.  Whether it is prayers, visits, calls, basket of goodies, money and the home cooked meals we have been grateful for each and every one of them.  We have had so many God things in our life over the past week I do not know exactly where to start.  Let’s start with day one.  God directed Eric and me to the hospital because if it would have been up to me Eric would have just gotten over this “flu bug” by eating chicken noodle soup and drinking sprite.  The next day God put several doctors in charge of Eric that were believers of him.  I had more than one doctor tell me it was not all up to them but up to God in seeing Eric through this.  I had confidence in each of these doctors.  The third day was when I was told Eric might have had a blood clot due to the low heart rate etc.  But God seen us through that.  Praise the lord CAT scan was normal.  As the days went Eric has improved each and every day.  He is now up moving around, eating solid foods and has his sense of humor back.  We have faith that God will see to it that Eric’s kidneys do start functioning again on their own.  I can not wait to get back to church and just praise God for all the wonderful miracles he has shown us this past week.  And for all of you who just thought Eric got out of renewing our vows, WRONG.  God has worked so much in our lives over the past few months.  I am not one who likes to speak in large groups but I feel if God can work through us the way he has over the months then I can sure get up and share my testimony with each and everyone of my church family members.  Also to send a shout out to our Preacher.  Wow what a man of God.  When I needed a strong shoulder to lean on my preacher was there for me.  When I didn’t quit understand what the Doctor’s where saying or my brain just totally left me Brother Terry stepped up and seen me through that.  He was there on several occasions when the doctors came in and help translate to me what was going on.  I know if anyone was to ask Eric he would tell you the same thing Brother T has been a strong shoulder to lean, a pick me up when need be and a messenger of God.  One more shout out and I will close.  For all the women in the church that our not part of the Bayou Girls you ABSOLUTELY DO NOT KNOW what you are missing.  I can not think of any other group of Christian Women I would want praying for me.  In my time of need I knew that each and everyone of the “Bayou Girls” would be there for me.  I was stocked up with snacks, personnel needs so I did not have to leave Eric, reading material and those home cooked meals.  But the most important thing I was provided from them this week is their prayers, their shoulders to lean on when I was weak and the encouraging words.  If I need to come to each and everyone of the women in our church and invite you to join the “Bayou Girls” I am not scared I will do it.  You will truly receive a blessing from God and will be with women that Love our God and do not mind sharing it.  Shannon made us girls a journal with the words “God things” it was a journal to write the small or big things God has done for us in our life’s through out the week.  I look forward to sharing my journal with all of you.  God is Good!   I send my love, thanks and appreciation to each of you. 

Eric and Candy Lawrence 

Recently, I’ve had some folks who have come to me, having been enlightened about the theology of Oprah Winfrey.  I’ve know for some time that she had a New Age belief system.  Apparently there are many who didn’t.  This blog entry is to give you a summation of the theology of Oprah.  If you don’t want to take my word for it, then read it from the source that I will be using.  The Watchman Fellowship is a cult watch-dog group that exposes cults of their false teachings.  Their belief statement is as follows, “Watchman Fellowship endorses a biblically based, conservative, evangelical position, proclaiming that all must turn from sin to trust the death, burial, and resurrection of the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, as the only remedy for sin and the sole foundation for true religion.”  You can find their website at watchman.org.  You will find at their site the Oprah info as well as info on many cults and celebrities (such as Joel Osteen and Tom Cruise).

Here’s the doctrine of Oprah in her own words:

God: “What I know is that God, nature, the Spirit, the universe, whatever title you wish to give
him—or her—is always trying to help each one of us to be the best and do the best that we can.”12
This quotation is particularly revealing, because it presents the universe and God as
interchangeable titles for the same reality. Winfrey often appeals to the universe in her meditations
and prayers (see next quotation).
“The universe is not interested in your struggles and your pain and your sorrow. It wants you
to be joyful… All that is God, my heart is open to you. My heart is open to find the flow, the flow, the
flow, the flow that is my life.”13 This is part of a guided meditation recommended by Winfrey.
“Because I am so connected to the bigger picture of what God is, I realize I’m just a particle in
the God chain. I see God as the ocean, and I’m a cup of water from the ocean.”14 This is a common
New Age illustration to explain how everyone is part of the oneness of all things.
“My prayer to God every morning on my knees is that the power in the universe should use my
life as a vessel or a vehicle for its work.”15
“I think you know what’s so important to me is that God isn’t a he or a she but is everything.”16
“I was raised a Baptist and we were too hung up on traditional ways. I was sitting in church
and heard that God is a jealous God. I asked ‘Why?’ Come on—let’s get over it!”17
“I believe in the FORCE—I call it God.”18
“You believe in love; then you believe in God.”19
Jesus: “If what we are taught in orthodox religion—I mean I was raised a Baptist—if, in fact
what we are taught when you go to church and you adore Jesus and praise Jesus … means Jesus
would have been the biggest egotist that ever lived, if that was his purpose in coming to the world to
have people adore him and worship him and carry on about him as people do.”20
“One of the most important books I have ever read is Eric Butterworth’s Discover the Power
Within You. In it he said, ‘Jesus did not come to teach us how divine he was, but to teach us that
there is divinity within us.”21 New Age enlightenment is realizing, like Jesus, that all is God.
Salvation: “One of the biggest mistakes humans make is to believe that there is only one way.
Actually, there are many diverse paths leading to what you call God… There couldn’t possibly be
only one way… Does God care about your heart or whether you called His Son Jesus?”22 This was
Winfrey’s reply to an audience member’s statement that Jesus is the only way.
The Bible: “As I read more of Shirley MacLaine—about the crystals—what you are saying in
The Aquarian Conspiracy—it seems to me to say what the Bible has said for years. It is just that
many of us were brought up with a more restricted, limited vision of what the Bible said.”23
Reincarnation: (including karma—belief that in the next life one will be rewarded for the good
and punished for the bad done in this life): “The first time I got a huge check I closed my office door,
lit a candle, and sat there with it. I prayed to the force that I call God, all that is goodness and light,
that my life might be an extension of the energy represented in that piece of paper, that it bring that
kind of value to myself and others.”24
“I believe that life is eternal. I believe that it takes on other forms. And I believe that there’s so
many different levels that the mind can’t even hold it all. So I believe that, yes, life will continue.”25
Channeling: Jonathan Demme, director of Beloved shared, “Oprah had explained to me…it was
her goal and intention to channel the spirit of Margaret Garner, the woman whose cataclysmic reallife
experience had first given birth to the idea of Beloved in the mind of Toni Morrison.”26 When
speaking of the actors in the film Beloved, Winfrey said “We were all channeling.”27
Winfrey might try to dismiss her views of channeling as simply calling upon the experiences of
others, but revealingly she wrote in her journal during the filming of Beloved: “I awakened early, and
did my daily prayer to the Ancestors.”28 A few days later she wrote: “I bring the force and grace of
history and pain with me, carrying the Ancestors in my heart, hoping, but also knowing, they too
carry me…I really believe I can call her up. Her and so many others. I’m counting on them.”
 

What blows you away is how many folks respect and follow her.  Let me hear your thoughts.
 

Bro.t

Here’s a shared “God-Thing” from one of our blog members. 

God Thing?  I think SO!  

Over the last several years, as long as I can remember, I have been challenged by depression.  Many times I would start on the positive uphill climb and something would happen in my life to cause me to stumble.  Well, the stumbles eventually became head-long plummets to the BOTTOM of the PIT.  During my adult life, I heard preachers speak of embracing all seasons of life.  I tried to embrace my “depression” season, but that’s a big one to embrace.  Lately, I’ve prayed for God to reveal how I can have a break-through and/or use my depression to minister to others.  I’m cautiously thinking I may have had a break-through, in that, God has shown me that I need to be conscious of my life, savor it and be aware of every part of it, not just go through it on auto-pilot, as many people do these days.  You’ll never guess how God presented this to me.  He did so through the TV show, “I Can Make You Thin”.  One of the 4 golden rules of the presenter’s plan is “Be conscious of what you’re eating”.  He described it this way, “Take a bite, put down your fork & knife, chew 20 times, SAVOR and ENJOY each bite.”  Nothing new, right?  Not rocket science either…no…in my case, a GOD THING!!!!  He gave me the ears to “hear” it and apply it, not only to my food consumption, but to LIFE CONSUMPTION!  During my Bible reading this morning, God impressed upon me how I have been consuming life just like most of us consume our food, without being conscious of it, without savoring it, and most of all, without ENJOYING it. I resolved TODAY that I will SAVOR this life, with all of its ups & downs.  I used to be a very organized person; I am not these days.  You see, BD (before depression), I had a great memory, so I didn’t cultivate the habit of relying on calendars, notes and lists.  I have FINALLY come to realize that I MUST depend on calendars, notes & lists.  By doing this, I can “unload” my mind, which keeps me from dwelling on things I need to accomplish.  Most of the times that I have dwelt on these tasks and chores, in my mind, they have become much larger and much more difficult, causing me to give up and give in to fear and failure.  (2 Timothy 1:7 KJV:  For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.)  Of course, calendars, notes and lists aren’t the answer to all of life’s riveting questions, and can’t be so rigid that there’s no room for me to let the Holy Spirit do His thing, but I am praying that this tactic, along with much prayer, counsel, and the love of my family, will one day soon set me FREE from this monster called depression. 

Hey folks, In order to keep a regular blog going, I will take submittals for posting.  I need to approve them first.  Send your submittals to ttipton@springbayou.com. 

bro.t

You know it’s nice to know that with God there are no power outages.  Can I get an “Amen!” 

If you recall, last year after hearing about the NFL’s issue with Church Super Bowl parties, we opted to due the moral thing by showing “Facing the Giants” instead (properly licensed, by the way).  It resulted in the Salvation of a lost soul.  This year we decided to show “Flywheel” (also properly licensed).  God blessed again.  This year, two souls were saved.  How about ‘dem God Things!!!  It goes to show that God honors those who honor Him.  I understand that the makers of “Flywheel” and “Facing The Giants” are on the verge of releasing a new movie, “Fireproof”.  Let’s pray next year that God would double the harvest again with four or more.  Praise God from whom all blessings flow!!!!

I know I haven’t been very good at keeping up the blog traffic, so I’ve got an idea.  How about we start making this blog a place to celebrate God Things.  God Things are those things, events, etc., that we see and acknowledge that God did it.  So I encourage you to respond to this blog message with any God Things that have happened to you this week. 

 God Bless,  Bro. T.

Up until these past few days, I had touted myself as having a high tolerance for pain.  As many know I’ve been going through tests this last month for back problems.  This past Friday I was to have my last test before discussing options with my doctor.  I had heard that a Disk-o-gram could be a very painful test.  Relying on my confidence in enduring pain, I was not worried.  When test time came, I was laid face down on a table.  The doctor would be testing 3 different disks.  He would one by one inject a contrast material into each disk.  If I felt pain, something was wrong with that disk, if not, the disk is fine.  I had already been made aware of two disks being damaged.  When the contrast is put into the first disk, there is no pain.  When the contrast is put into the second disk, a sharp but short pain shoots down my left leg.   Disk #3 produces a extended heavy pressure on the lower spine.  At this point, I’m thinking, “no problem”.  Pain tolerance/manliness wins the day, or so I thought.  When the test was over I hear these words, “when you sit up, you will feel intense pain in those problem disks.”  They explain that the material that was injected into the disks had filled them up and gravity would now be bearing down on them.  As I slowly raised up on the bed to get into a sitting position, the flood gates of pain came crashing down from lower back to left hip down to the tips of my toes on the left side.  This made my shoulder pain from rotator cuff surgery seem like child’s play.  It was a half an hour before I was even able to have a CAT scan run.  After being wheel chaired to the car, and a few hundred feet of riding, I knew there was no way I was going to ride all the way back to Paducah.  By the time Leah got me to a hotel parking lot, the pain was so intense I couldn’t walk in.  It was an hour just getting me out of the van.  That hour was spent half in the floor board, half with a leg swung over a backseat.  After a bit, I was able to fall asleep grasping that bench seat like it was a life preserver.  After a brief nap, I decide that I may be able to make it to the hotel room.  Leah then had to be my crutch .  A couple days later, here I am typing a blog on Sunday night while sitting on a heating pad having had to find replacements to fill in for me.  This was the most intense pain I’ve ever had.  High tolerance for pain—out the window.  Manly toughness—none to be found.  There were moments that I believe I cried like a school girl.  I don’t share the woes of my week to receive sympathy.  Instead I share my woes of pain to tell you that my suffering doesn’t hold a candle to what Jesus suffered for me.  In my moment of pain I would have taken any pain-killers they would have given me.  In his moment of pain when offered a drink of vinegar laced with gall to deaden the pain, he refused.  He didn’t want to cheapen his sacrifice.  No position he could wiggle into could ease his pain.  No assistance was available to provide a crutch.  He had to bear it all, the pain of crucifixion, the weight of a world’s sin.  Compared to that—I’m a big sissy.  Precious Lord, thank you for your endurance of the cross.  Thank you for bearing the weight of my sin.  Forgive me for when I add weight to your burden.  You are God, my redeemer….

The word of the LORD that came to Jeremiah concerning the drought:
    2 Judah mourns;
    her gates languish.
    [Her people] are on the ground in mourning;
    Jerusalem’s cry rises up.
    3 Their nobles send their servants for water.
    They go to the cisterns;
    they find no water;
    their containers return empty.
    They are ashamed and humiliated;
    they cover their heads.
    4 The ground is cracked
    since no rain [has fallen] on the land.
    The farmers are ashamed;
    they cover their heads.
    5 Even the doe in the field
    gives birth and abandons [her fawn]
    since there is no grass.
    6 Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights
    panting for air like jackals.
    Their eyes fail
    because there are no green plants.
    7 Though our guilt testifies against us,
    LORD, act for Your name’s sake.
    Indeed, our rebellions are many;
    we have sinned against You. —-HCSB

The land is dry.  The air is hot.  Lord, send us some rain.  This description