Real for Christ, Scholarship Opportunities

Praise the Lord.

I want to invite you out to our Sunday afternoon services from 3:00 pm- 4:30 pm.

Coming Soon! True Holiness Christian University offering Bachelor’s, Master’s, and DD’s in Systematic Theology!

Coming soon also will be an 8 Week Series titled, The Holy Spirit/Ghost – What it is, What it Ain’t and How to Get it the Bible Way.

Before I continue from last week I want to give a shout out to my man Jahari, aka “Big”.

Had a great conversation last night outside the corner store but 11:30 pm Sunday night after I had come home from having “chuch”.  Yes the spelling is correct, not church but chuch!

Been a long time since I stayed the entirety of a church service that went on for over 4 hours.

Believe me, it wasn’t hard staying, when you see young people as well as seasoned ones coming to the altar for prayer and in less than sixty seconds, witness a transformation unlike anything seen in today’s “PC” church.

People all over the pews, on the floor, calling on the name of Jesus asking Him to bless them, forgive them, etc. etc. etc.  Oil slung everywhere and no one concerned about their cleaning bill.

I know it sounds chaotic, and to some extent it was, but, it was real.

I’m looking at a young brother no older than 18 tarrying to get filled with the Holy Ghost for over an hour, a 8 year old coming up with his hands in the air wanting to be prayed for and not under arrest.  You just had to be there.

Me and Big had a great conversation about the fakeness everywhere and how you can’t tell who is real.  One thing I assured him before leaving was that all of these fake-jakers, as we used to called then back in the day, can keep on faking the funk, another term we used, I grew up in Polk County, Winter Haven to be exact, I have never seen a UHaul following behind a hearse. Building up riches on this side of the grave will only make your family happy and it won’t get you in the kingdom.  I went this way because I told Big that there are 130+ churches south of Central Avenue.  Something is wrong when that many churches are in such close proximity and there ain’t at least 10-15 Fellowship/Revival/Convocation type services throughout South St. Pete every year.  Don’t nobody preach and teach the same thing? That many?  Ain’t that many chiefs recorded in American history and most of them have no head over them to govern their actions.  Ima leave that one for another time.  “Big”, God Bless you Brotha, keep your focus on Jesus and He will direct your path as to how to raise your twins.  Although they are not here physically outside the womb, you can direct them now.  Babies in the womb take on their surroundings, taste buds, personalities, etc. etc. Fact.

Changing gears.

Parents please go to www.blackexcel.org, www.fastweb.com and www.fafsa.ed.gov and sit your high schooler down and make them research these websites and pick out 20-50 different scholarships to apply for and apply for a Pell Grant.

Also, if you haven’t heard about it there is a Pinellas County scholarship called Take Stock in Children.  Most families I speak to don’t have a clue, but my youngest is in his senior year at UCF and he won one and we have been Blessed to not have to worry about robbing Peter to pay Paul.

They have to be recommended to it so check, double check, and recheck and do not take no for an answer.

Black Excel is a website that furnishes information on scholarships available to black students only and currently there’s over 500 plus to date.

Fast Web is a website that links you to available scholarships based off the information you furnished once you set up your account.

FAFSA of course is the Pell Grant itself. FREE money to go to college based solely on your family’s income.  It’s a headache but well worth it in the end. Be patient and complete everything even if you have to resubmit. It keeps money in the parents’ pockets and puts money in the children’s bank accounts.

Say thank you to our current and soon to be former governor for cutting the Bright Future’s Scholarships in half!  That really hurt a lot of deserving kids that worked hard to get them only to have it almost not be worth the efforts.

It is so frustrating to me to hear parents always say, “Well they’re grown now and they’re gonna have to make their own mistakes and take their own paths,” or “We made mistakes and they’re going have to learn from theirs too.”  That’s asinine, asi-ten, asi-eleven, …!

That’s backwards and will lead to you having to dig them out of the hole you dug for them by not setting up detours along the way to prevent this in the first place.  You are the parent, the leader, the guide!  The one who was supposed to be practicing wisdom, rightly applied knowledge learned from experience.

God opened the door for each of us to have His Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth.  How is it that we think that we are supposed to teach our kids the opposite?

First of all they are NOT grown, they are young adults! Get out the house, get a job, get a Duke Energy account in their name, a water bill in their name, and pay some bills for about six to 12 months, and then we can talk about being grown.

Secondly, what’s going to happen when the school says they still owe money or they can’t get their books or enroll in classes after they have already left?  You guessed it, you are going to have to beg, borrow and rob Peter to pay Paul to make sure they don’t have to come back and be embarrassed and drive you even crazier than you currently are.

Finally and most importantly, here’s the thing mom and dad, if you would have sat down with them and made them fill out those forms for scholarships, set up the accounts on FastWeb, filed that FAFSA on time, made them do that community service for the Bright Future’s scholarship, you wouldn’t be in that predicament in the first place.

I went back and forth with my two that are currently in college for months up until it was time to prepare to decide where they would go.  I let them debate with me how they were sick and tired of this terrible city and wanted to get away as soon as they could. But, you had better believe that after the smoke cleared, if they didn’t have a full ride, they went to SPC, then after they saw how it felt to have thousands in their own bank accounts and realized that college wasn’t as hard as they were told by their guidance counselors and AP teachers, it was a much smoother transition for them and less stressful on our pockets.

While some were irresponsible with their new money buying all manner of things, some parents put their feet down and limited their spending teaching them fiscal responsibility.

Some schools tell you ahead of time about these very important steps and others put it all on the students claiming they are responsible enough to have told the parents and of course they miss out.

This is one to save even if your kids are not in high school. These websites will still be up and will only increase as time passes.

My email is pastorrobharrison@ gmail.com if you want or need additional information. I check my email daily and if you need my cell number, please respond via my email and I will call you.

Before I do I want to give you a few warm up scriptures that will help to bring this key one to light.Top of Form

Till next week,

God Bless.

Rev. Dr. Robert L. Harrison, PhD – pastorrobharrison@gmail.com, @drrobharrison (Twitter), Robert Bob Harrison (Facebook)

Pastor – Open Door True Holiness Church – 2800 41st Ave. N, St. Pete  – www.weareholiness.org  | Church of God and True Holiness, Intl.  www.trueholinesschurches.org

Chaplain – Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Pinellas

Parent Support for Education Council Board  Member

Chaplain – Dept. Juvenile Justice for Circuit 6

Democratic Black Caucus Member