Archive for February, 2005
02/23/2005
This week has been particularly busy. I know I say that lots, but this time it was off the hook! There are so many great things happening in my life right now! I don’t have much time as I am about to head out the door to put the finishing touches on my recordings. But I do want to share a bit about one thing in particular.
I have found a Church home in the last couple months. It has been awesome to be able to plug into a Church that is so solid Theologically. The College ministry they have is a little lacking though. But one thing I love about this Church is their readiness to allow people to step in where there is a need. Anyway…to make a long story short, Grant and I have a passion to minister in this area so we have been discussing how we can fit into the bigger picture of the Church. Tons of time over the last couple weeks has been devoted to formulating a ministry plan. We have been working hard and praying for a new ministry to develop. God has been so great to us! Yesterday we launched the official website to our ministry. And today we met with the Pastor from Salem First Baptist. Things went really great with him and we are very excited to see how this all plays out. If you are interested in finding out more about the ministry please go to:
http://www.universitylife.org/salem
Well…I am about to be late, so I am gonna have to write more later!
Peace!
.:Vin:.
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02/20/2005
Ok…if you haven’t had a sofa for almost a month raise your hand! (If you could see me right now my hand would be up!). O well…it would be nice, but I usually don’t spend tons of my time on the sofa anyway– unless it’s taking a nap of course. But then again, I haven’t had much time for that lately either 
The Lord is good! He has been teaching me some really great things and stretching me out lately. It is such a wonderful thing to progress in my walk with my Lord! I pray that God would continue to open my eyes and my heart to see and take hold of all the wonderful things He has in store.
Oops…it is almost 3 and I need to be up for Church in the morning!!! I am sure it will be great sleep even though it isn’t long.
Until next time!
Vin
vinthomas@vinthomas.com
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02/18/2005
i am trying a few new things with the blog to make it match the www.vinthomas.com site. I hope it doesn’t throw you off too much!
Vin
mailto:vinthomas@vinthomas.com
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02/18/2005
This week has been pretty busy for me. I have spent quite some time working on a new website for my school. Once I have it done I will post a link for you. I also spent some time this week recording. It is really starting to sound great! I hope to have the first 4 songs done by next weekend! Woo hoo!
So tomorrow I am getting together with a buddy of mine (Grant) to discuss starting a college ministry here in Salem. That would be awesome! I know that both of us really have a heart to reach college-age students here in Salem. Grant is a pretty bright guy and I think he would do a really great job teaching. I would LOVE to start leading worship again and teaching too! Hopefully we can throw some ideas down tomorrow. I will keep y’all posted for sure! It would be such a dream-come-true if we could end up doing full-time ministry while in Seminary. Well…I have to get up early in the morning and it is getting to be pretty late!
Maranatha,
Vin
vin_thomas@msn.com
PS. Thanks for all the compliments on the new site!
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02/15/2005
Sup?
If you haven’t had a chance to check out my site lately you will find it is looking pretty different now. Plus I added a few navigation buttons at the top of this page so you can easily go back and forth between my www.vinthomas.com site and my blog. Let me know what you think of the new layout
peace!
Vin
vin_thomas@msn.com
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02/11/2005
Man o man. I have been running off the hook lately! Actually that isn’t completely true…I have had the opportunity to slow down a bit this week and enjoy fellowshipping with some friends and watching TV. It is really rare that I watch TV (since I don’t own one)…so when I do, it is a real treat! oooo…and another highlight of my week was playing Settlers of Catan! I haven’t played that in way too long! Now that I have people to play it with, I am sure it will get pulled out every once in a while!
I have been working on a few websites lately. One for a friend of mine who is putting out some AWESOME new stuff! I just posted a new song to his site called “GOT LIFE?”. It is great! If you want to hear it you can go to www.satorimusic.ca -
I spent some time this week finishing up some more recording. We only have a couple more sessions to go before we are done with this phase of the project. Once these 4 songs are done (which should be no more than 2 weeks away) I am thinking about starting another 4. That way I might release an album now consisting of mostly worship tunes, and then when I record this summer in Ontario I can work on another project altogether. It should be a blast.
School is going great! I am knee-deep in Greek vocab and forms right now. It is pretty tough, but I LOVE it! It is such a great feeling to bust open my Greek NT and read the Original language! Next quarter will be even more hectic than this one! I am taking 24 credits (count em 2-4!!!). That is virtually a triple-time schedule!! It will be mad busy, but I am sure there will be a pay off!
Work is fun, but it isn’t what I love to do. I am happy to drive buses for as long as it takes to plug into ministry, but my heart is with the Church. I would love nothing more than to get plugged in somewhere and get paid to minister to folks. That way I could really devote almost all of my time to school and the Ministry.
I have been praying about plugging into a College ministry here in Salem. I think there are opportunities for me to lead worship and build up the Bride. If you have some time and you feel like squeezing me into your prayers, you might want to lift that request up to the Lord. I would like that lots and lots! Well…I should probably go hit the B doubleO K’s
Maranatha,
Vin
vin_thomas@msn.com
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02/08/2005
I really have a passion to minister to others. I have found a Church that I think is gonna end up being my home here in Salem. It is a really great Church with AWESOME teaching. One of the things that also drew me was their openness to allow me to minister there. So far I have plugged into a Sunday School class, and next week I am meeting with the Pastor to talk about leading worship. I am really excited for that! I have been reading in Ephesians a lot lately and I am really encouraged by that book to build up the Body. I have read of how a Church ought to operate – as a Body. It is not a new concept, but it has been good for me to meditate on what it is to be the Church.
“…Speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in
all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” – Ephesians 4:15-16
It is great to think that EACH member of the Body is responsible for the building up of the others. We are an organism in a sense. That is part of why the Bible uses the metaphor of the Body. We are all dependent on one another to grow and mature properly. The janitor who cleans the toilets is responsible for the building up of the Body just as the Pastor is. Perhaps there are differing degrees of responsibility, but we all need to be active in our building up of the Body in love.
God has given me my own ministry here in Salem. Although I am not working at a Church, I believe that He has me employed here for a reason. I trust that He will continue to use others to build me up. And I pray that He will continue to grant me more and more opportunities to build up the Body.
Vin
vin_thomas@msn.com
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02/06/2005
So today was the last day of the J.P. Moreland lectureship on ethics. All I can say is WOW! This guy has an amazing mind! I just wish that I could be close to having even a fraction of the understanding this guy has!! The lectureship was entitled “The Assault on Human Dignity: The Relationship of Personhood and Ethics”. I thought it was going to be mainly focused on controversial topics such as abortion, cloning, stem-cell research etc. But it ended up being much larger of a topic for the most part. He spent the majority of his time talking about what a person is. And once had established what a person is he could easily dismantle any argument for the above controversial topics. He had some really great thoughts that really challenged me to think through what I believe.
Well…my lasagna just came so I am gonna eat it, do some homework, and then go work out.
nighty night
Vin
vin_thomas@msn.com
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02/03/2005
Yo!
So today was pretty fun! I worked at 1:30 and when I was done my route I still had 2 kids on my bus! 
That problem was solved soon so it wasn’t that bad. Then I went and looked a bunch of sofa’s. I still haven’t found one yet. I am going to look at another one in a few minutes, but if that doesn’t work out I think I will just buy a new one. That would be sweet (but expensive) ~
I am really looking forward to this weekend. Starting tomorrow and going through to Saturday we have a lectureship at the school done by J.P. Moreland. It should be pretty rad! He is talking on personhood and ethics, so he will cover topics like abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research and stuff like that! I really look forward to it! (Plus it is an easy 2 Credits)
Well I’m gonna make like a baby and head out…
Peace!
Vin
vin_thomas@msn.com
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