Church

A Fresh Perspective

Sep 26, 2006

I don’t want to lose sight of what happened this past Sunday…I want to celebrate with all my might…and then plan the next celebration.  Folks…understand that THIS COULD BE THE BEGINNING OF THE NEXT GREAT AWAKENING!!!

What we saw Sunday…it’s NOT NORMAL!!!  The e-mails we received yesterday blew us all away.  There was a single mom who said she had contemplated suicide on Saturday night because she felt so hopeless…but didn’t go through with it and so she got up on Sunday and came to church because a friend invited her…and she AND her daughter both accepted Christ.

There was a lady who told us that for the past 11 years her husband would not even say the name of Jesus…but on Sunday he walked forward and asked Jesus to come into His life.

There was the former athiest (notice I said former) who was here the week before and wanted to come back this week just to hear the message…yeah…he’s not an athiest any longer!  He received Jesus!

But folks—we can’t sit back now and say “whew!”  We saw this past Sunday what happens when we get passionate about our friends and family that do not know Christ.  And there are STILL people out there that are one conversation, one invitation away from coming to church—hearing about Christ—and completely committing their life to Him.

Oh yeah…this Sunday—uh yeah, IT IS GOING TO BE JUST AS AMAZING!  I promise you that this Sunday you will see something happen that 99.9% of you have NEVER seen take place…and that goes for those who grew up in church as well as those who are from an unchurched background.  Pray hard…and if you have friends and family members that do not know Christ—GET THEM HERE!!!

One final thought…8,000 people showing up for church is amazing…but when you consider it was right here in Anderson, SC—HOLY COW!!!  Ben, a friend of mine, sent me this e-mail yesterday that I wanted to share with you…

Was Sunday really that big of a deal???
A little perspective….
*  Newspring had a larger crowd Sunday than nine Division 1 football games did on Saturday.
* There were more at Newspring Sunday than the Florida Marlins actual average attendance this year.
* More than the Kansas City Royals actual attendance as they hosted division leader Detroit Tigers yesterday.
*  More than the population of the cities of Camden, Clinton, Dillon, Fort Mill, Seneca, York, Abbeville, Belton, Honea Path, Iva, Liberty and 180 other South Carolina cities.
*Newspring had more Sunday than the total population of Jews or Muslims in South Carolina.
*Newspring had more in attendance Sunday than the registered members of all other Baptist churches in our zip code….combined.
* There were almost as many people at Newspring as there are pages in the IRS Tax code (9,000 pages)
*  Based on U.S. averages, if every person in attendance Sunday were to join hand in hand and stretch as far apart as they could, you would have a continuous chain of people almost nine miles long!  That’s a line of people from NewSpring to the Anderson Courthouse and then to the Anderson Mall!
*  Everyone that was saved Sunday could join hand in hand and make an entire loop around a running track (1/4 mile).
Was Sunday big?  Uh, yeah, I’d say it was.