Howdy NewSpring Church, SEVEN things I would love to share with you today…
#1 - I love what the Lord is doing in and through our church right now, and this past Sunday was no exception! When I think about the story we read in Ezekiel 37:1-13 and then compare it to what Paul wrote to people IN THE CHURCH in Ephesians 2:1-5 I’m completely overwhelmed…I WAS DEAD, but God, through His mercy, made me alive in Christ! (AND…it was also nice to have “Herman” with me on stage for illustration purposes. :-) ) A few other things to remember from Sunday…
- Followers of Christ are not defined by their story but rather by their Savior!
- Everyone who follows Christ will go through a tough time…and when that happens it will cause us to question whether or not God cares (see Matthew 11:1-2!)
- When that happens we have to rely on fact, not on feelings…and God says in I Peter 5:7 that we can cast ALL our anxiety on Him because He cares for us!
- If God cares about people who are spiritually dead, then we are called to care as well…it is a spiritual impossibility to be a fully devoted follower of Christ and not care about what He cares about!
- We as a church need to continue to do all that we can to share Christ and invite people to church…because He wants His house to be full (see Luke 14:15-23!)
- Let’s do everything we can to become more like Jesus and leave our comfort zones in order that we may GET PEOPLE to church to hear the Gospel! Like a great friend of mine recently said, this is NOT about church attendance, it’s about eternity!!!
#2 - Christmas services begin on Wednesday in Anderson and on Thursday at all of our other locations. (Here is the website where you can get your free tickets and see the service times!) I would encourage everyone to do everything you can to NOT MISS the opening of the service. It’s going to be unlike anything we’ve ever done. I can’t wait! It’s going to have a PARTY feel, remember, Jesus never showed up anywhere in the Scriptures and made things more boring!!! He didn’t come to start a funeral, He came to start a party!!! And so this week we are going to CELEBRATE…I can’t wait!
#3 - Reminder to all campuses, we are celebrating Jesus’ birthday early this year…and so there will be no Sunday worship services at NewSpring Church this coming Sunday. (A complete explanation was given in point #7 in last weeks post here.) AND…a mentor/friend of mine, Dr. James Emory White, wrote an excellent article on this as well here!
#4 - A HUGE thank you to everyone at NewSpring Church for your amazing generosity. Several years ago our church heard about the fact that there were kids in some of our schools in Anderson that literally could not afford shoes. In response our church chose to go into one school in our community and literally give every child a free pair of shoes for Christmas…and we were blown away by the response and so we’ve done this at every campus every year since. Well, over the past week or so, once again because of your amazing generosity, we were able to go into SEVEN elementary schools across our state and give away 2,971 pairs of shoes and also were able to give a small gift card to 560 staff members in those schools as a way of saying “thank you.” Let me say it again…God is using YOUR generosity to make a difference as THOUSANDS of children smiled just because a church stepped up and did something. So thankful that the Lord allows us to do this!!!
#5 - We WILL be having services on Sunday, January 1st and it will be our annual “Year In Review” service where we CELEBRATE what God did in 2011 and ANTICIPATE what He will do in 2012. (And it WILL BE A PARTY AS WELL!!! Seriously, why in the world does the church allow the world to out celebrate us???)
#6 - If you are STILL looking for a great gift idea for someone, there are STILL about 50 or so spots left on our Israel trip that we are taking in the Spring (you can go here for more info) OR you can go ahead and sign your teenager up for the Gauntlet, our summer youth camp at Daytona Beach that is INCREDIBLE (more info on that here!)
#7 - My friend Mark Driscoll, along with his wife Grace, are going to be here at NewSpring Church on Friday, March 23 and Saturday March 24 for a marriage conference unlike anything you’ve ever seen. They have written a book together (which is AMAZING) and this will be a part of their book tour. Here is the website for more information...if you want to attend I would strongly encourage you to sign up ASAP, this event will sell out. I promise you it will challenge and strengthen your marriage…and if you are single then I can promise you that it will be INCREDIBLE information for you to take in before you get married!!!
That’s it for now, see you this week for one of our Christmas services, I LOVE MY CHURCH!!!