A Letter to NewSpring Church from Shane Duffey

Perry Noble

Hey NewSpring!

Thanks for checking into the blog today. I (Shane Duffey) have loved having the privilege of keeping you guys updated over the last several weeks. Next week you’ll get to hear from my friend Lee McDerment (I’ll be vacationing!) AND THEN our Pastor will be back providing these updates starting on 7/10/12.  Man, time really does fly!

I would love for each of you to take note of and celebrate the following five things:

#1 - Yesterday was a great day at all of our campuses. We saw 215 take their NEXT STEP and go public with their faith through baptism!  I want encourage anyone who has made the decision to follow Jesus but has not yet taken the next step of baptism to do it. We would love to help you with that next step, so please go here to get more details.

#2 – Also, yesterday we heard from Kaleb White. As Perry mentioned in his video introduction of Kaleb, we are a church that values the next generation. Perry shared Psalm 145:4-7 and Kaleb did an exceptional job “declaring the mighty acts of God” as he spoke on Weird worship. Kaleb reminded us that worship is about the Lord and that the Lord does not change. Those truths are what equips us to be able to worship the Lord when things are great AND when things are awful. I don’t know about you, but my focus/worship can easily shift from who Jesus is to what’s going on around me. I need to keep my “deep love and respect” (the definition of worship that Kaleb gave us) focused on the Lord because no matter what’s going on around me, He has promised to take care of me.

Oh, by the way, 76 people decided to accept Jesus as their savior! THAT NEVER GETS OLD!!!

If you missed church this week or want to see any of our Weird messages, you can check them out here.

#3 - Kaleb mentioned in his sermon that he met Christ at The Gauntlet. Kaleb is just one of so many great life change stories that have begun at The Gauntlet over the years. This year will be no different. Some of you reading this need to take hold of an opportunity to serve our students this year at The Gauntlet. I promise you it will change your life and you will get to be a crucial part of someone else’s Gauntlet story. You do not need to be a current Fuse volunteer to serve at the Gauntlet but you do need to be someone who is ready to experience something great through serving our students.

Go here for the information you need to serve at this year’s Gauntlet.

#4 - This week is the last week of our summer Take the Land initiative. If you have been meaning to give or want to learn more about this giving initiative then visit this page. Then pray to ask God what He wants you to do and then give your best gift by July 1.

If your not currently tithing (giving the local church 10% of your gross income) then we would like for you to consider our 90 Day Challenge instead of participating in Take the Land. For all the information on the 90 Day Challenge, go here.

#5 - I’m very excited about the next two weeks of Weird because we will be hearing from our Senior Pastor Perry Noble. He recorded two messages before he left for his sabbatical and we are going to share those with you over the next two weeks. You do not want to miss these important messages from Perry. They’re ‘weird’ and they’re awesome!