Georgia/Florida Summer 2012

     I apologize for taking so long to get back to sharing about all of my ministry trips this summer.  I have already shared about Virginia, California and Alabama.  Now it is on to Georgia. 
     After driving back to Oklahom from Alabama, spending four nights at home and leaving my wife home with the kids, I drove to Georgia.  I went to a new church that I had never been to before in Nashville, GA and met some great folks.  The new pastor there is Rev. Paul Guthrie.  Brother Paul is a dear friend of mine and had asked me to come by and meet his congregation.  I preached a Sunday morning service for them and we had a potluck dinner.  They were very kind to let me live in thier evangelist's quarters while I was there as well.  That night I preached for Pastor Rob Merit, another close friend of mine, at Chatterton Holiness Baptist Church near Douglas, GA.  Chatterton has been a monthly sponsor of HMA as long as I can remember.  That night our service got out a little early so I slipped into Douglas and went to church at Westside Holiness church where Bro. Steve Gentery is pastor and was able to see many of my old friends.  Westside has been one of the strongest supporting churches of HMA since I met them.  While I was there Pastor Steve asked me if I could swing back by in a couple of weeks and preach for them.
     The next day Bro. Robbie Guthrie took me to lunch with the Sheriff of thier county and then the Sheriff took us out to the county jail.  While in the jail the three of us had a long and deep discussion and bible study about salvation, sanctification and the works of the spirit.  If was a fruitful day.  One of my biggest plans for being in Georgia had already fallen through so I drove down into south Florida and preached around for Pastor Rufus Caraway and his organization while I was closer to them than I had been in years.  We had a wonderful time preaching and having church with the saints at the Upper Room Church of God in Arcadia, FL, God's Miracle Mission where Bro. Scott Hostetler pastors in Tampa, FL, New Life Holiness Church in Lake Placid, FL where Bro. Travis Matney pastors and with Pastor Timmy Baggett and his church in Lakeland, FL.  While in Florida we had the tremendous priveledge of stopping by our HMA affiliate in Center Hill.  HMA Pastor J. R. Smith recently re-organized and re-opened Covenant Holiness Church and we were thrilled to be in service with them.
     After hitting all of the churches that I could in south Florida I drove up to Pensacola and preached at Beams of Light Holiness Church for Pastor Phillip Deane, one of the HMA board members because....well, because he is one of my board members.  :)).  The very next night I drove back into Alabama and preached again at Fretwell Tabernacle in Perdido, Alabama where I had just been with my wife about three weeks earlier.  While I was there our newest HMA ministers, The Davis Family, (see our website at www.holinessmissionstoamerica.com), asked me if I would go with them to Samantha Church just outside of Birmingham.  I went and I was so glad that I did.  The Lord moved so sweetly in that service and I was able to get re-aquainted with several old friends.
     Lastly, I drove back to Douglas, GA and spent the night with some great and special freinds of ours, Bro. Tommy and Sis. Mary Guthrie.  The next morning I went to the Annual Holiness Baptist Campmeeting to hear Brother Phillip Deane preach.....(because he's my board member.  Haha).  He is going to kill me.  Anyway, he truly did preach a powerful and wonderful message.  I rarely get to hear much preaching in person anymore but that morning I was awestruck and inspired.  I was supposed to preach that night at West Side Holiness Church in Douglas and then leave out for Oklahoma after service but Pastor Steve Willingham of the Holiness Baptist Campmeeting asked me if I could possibly stay over and preach the next morning during the campmeeting.  So I did preach for Pastor Gentry that night at Westside and we had a great service, as we always do at Westside, and then I spent the night again with Bro. Tommy and Sis. Mary, went back to the campmeeting and Brother Deane and I both preached and then I left for Oklahoma. 
     As you can tell, this summer I have traveled and preached probably more than I ever have since I got off the field "full time".  Most of the churches that I preached at this summer were churches that have sponsored HMA monthly without me ever getting to visit them for years at a time.  I felt a tremendous pull to get back and see these blessed saints and thank them again to thier faces.  The other churches were new aquaintances that were interested in our work and our message or churches that were just on our regular schedule.
     This was the end of our 'big trips" that were scheduled this summer and these last few blogs about Virginia, California, Alabama and this one about Georgia and Florida, span a period of time where I was home for 6 nights out of 7 and 1/2 weeks.  We have taken some "smaller" trips since then and I will try to blog about them as well.  During all of this traveling and preaching out, we, (with the trememdous help of our staff and families), were able to maintain all of our other mission works and the furniture thrift store while continuing to build on our part of the kingdom of heaven.  Also I would like to add that 100% of all of the funds raised on each of these trips were used in the direct work of reaching the least, the last and the lost!  God bless each and every one of you. 

     Here is a comment from a friend on face book about this anti-abortion picture that I put up.  First her comment, then my response.  This is all part of a campaign to de-fund Planned Parenthood.   Remember this is face book.

      Friend wrote: "Planned Parenthood isn't just about abortion; people need to stop and think. It gives out birth control more than anything. And if a woman was raped or a victim of incest, abortion isn't wrong!!"

      I responded: “Thank you Tracy for your input and thank you sooooo much to all of my face book friends for honoring my wishes and not starting an ugly and ridiculous back and forth name calling session on my page.  You all know that I don’t believe in that.  You also know that I hardly ever answer a comment like this because I don’t generally think it my place to butt into everybody’s personal business.  BUT….this happens to be on my page and it was my business to start with.  Friend, please know that this is a topic that I study, preach and teach about all the time and have for years.  In other words, this is what I do for a living.  Your comment is going to help me in my teaching but you probably aren’t going to like it.  J   I have no axe to grind with you personally and most of these comments won’t even be directed to you but your comment just gave me an opening to further my point with others.  Here goes.

     You made two very false statements and you made them sound like they were facts.  Here are the facts.  THESE ARE PLANNED PARENTHOOD’S NUMBERS, NOT MINE!  94% of all Planned Parenthood financing goes for abortions.  You said that “it gives birth control more than anything else”.  Not according to Planned Parenthood.  Also, rape and incest abortions make up……..are u ready for this……    .008% of all abortions in America today.  That means that some believe that we should fund all abortions just because they think that the .008% of them that are “not wrong” can be taken care of.  This means that according to Planned Parenthood and the federal government statistics that one out of every 12,500 abortions performed in America have anything to do with the two scenarios that you are defending.  So we will terminate (kill) 12,499 babies so that we can be sure to be able to get rid of the “right one”?

     Now I must remind all of my “readers” that if you have heard me preach the sermon titled “The Master’s Soup” somewhere then you may remember me saying that almost all liberal thinking, pro-abortion or pro-choice minded people have been pre-programmed to defend abortion using the “rape or incest” clause.  It is one of the only “decent” arguments that they have left.  (Friend, your comments played right into my teachings from the past few weeks is the only reason why I am taking this opportunity.  It is not so much that I am hoping to change your mind; I probably won’t, as it is to use your comments to reinforce the ones that I am already reaching.  No dis-respect intended).

     The only other thing that I must say for now is about the statement that “in the case of incest or rape, abortion isn’t wrong”.  This is literally WORD FOR WORD the same argument I hear all over the country.  All I can say is if you do not believe in the God of the bible, I can see why you would think that.  If you do believe in the God of the bible, as hard as it is, I don’t know how you can pretend like life was brought forth, even in such a disgusting and cruel way, without God being involved.  And if God was involved, I don’t know how you could pretend to be “His judge” and try to destroy something that He helped created.  I understand that this is very complicated and difficult, but just because we don’t understand a situation doesn’t mean that we can pretend like God doesn’t exist for a few moments while we try to undo nature.  I would be afraid to face God someday with that on my sheet.

     Probably the most unique thing that I have encountered while studying and debating this issue across the country is whenever I answer the rape or incest clause the way I just did, the other side always goes off on how disgusting and horrible and insane of an act rape or incest is and they always try to emotionalize and personalize it by asking me what I would do if that happened to my wife or my daughter.  That’s when I ask this question:  “Do you, dear liberal pro-choice friend, believe in capital punishment?................oops!  Long silence.  No, they don’t.  I am sure there is one out there somewhere, but I have yet to meet a pro-choice person that isn’t also against the death penalty. Do you know what this means?????  It means that they believe that the baby should be killed because of how horrible an act that was committed in conceiving it but that the man that performed the horrible act should NOT be killed.  HELLO????  Is anybody home???????? 

     Anyway, now there are a few more FACTS out there.  Not my facts either.  Read, get mad, contemplate, pray, respectfully disagree, whatever.   God bless each and every one of you.  Love and prayers to all.

     One last thing to all of my friends.  If you agree with me, just hit like.  Don’t type a five line note that says that you agree with me and then leave a couple of cheap shots, bad names or personal opinions against people that may disagree.  I’m not trying to intentionally offend people, hurt people or start a war.  But when I do respond, it is with FACTS and sincerity and tough love, not flippant meanness or self righteous arrogance.  BIG DIFFERENCE.  We Love Everyone.  Pray for us.”

Your humble servant,

Rev. D. Todd Sloggett