June 13, 2008Dear friends,
Well I am running just a little late this week and quite honestly, I have
let this week slip by quickly without even knowing. I am reminded of how
quickly even our lives will go by and before we know it, we are approaching
death's door. I hope today friend you have all taken some time to meditate
on your own mortality. Have you made settlement with all who need
settlement? More importantly: have you made settlement with the Lord
Jesus?
LOCALLY
Well we have been waiting for God to move like He did last Sunday, at 11
am. There was a special anointing that swept over our service as we weeped
and prayed on our altar. To God be the glory, we saw several make
professions of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is what we have been
waiting for. Those of you who have been faithful in prayer for our church
know what I am talking about. God has chosen to visit with us in a special
way and we cannot wait to see where He leads us and what may happen. I
attribute this move of God to prayer and how one day John Nichols came into
one of our leadership meetings with a prayer agenda and our leaders were
obedient to begin a weekly prayer movement. This movement has gone to
another prayer movement on Wednesday night where we worship the Lord through
prayer and Scripture reading. I encourage you prayer warriors to rise up
and begin to seek His face in worship. Get ready, God is up to something
and we want so desperately to get on His agenda. We pray for all of those
who surrendered to Christ last Sunday that they will begin to witness the
Holy Spirit's prompting in their life.
Our informational meeting this past Sunday night was a time of celebration
and yes you guessed it: prayer. We celebrated how God was meeting above
and beyond our needs at New Life with a surplus of financial giving. What a
testimony to the faithfulness of God. We want to welcome 2 dear Saints at
New Life to our Leadership Board: Monty Hiter (3 year term) and Dale Turner
(1 year term). We are grateful to these men for stepping up to help move
our church in an exciting new direction. We appreciate all of our team
leaders and their respective ministries: Mark May-Sunday School Team, Mike
Pelloni-Children's Ministry Team, Ken Musser-Greeting/Hospitality, John
Nichols-(Acting Youth Director), Rob Connelly-Music/Technology and John
Nichols-Assistant Pastor. We want to thank these guys for their continued
service in ministry at New Life. In addition, we want to thank and pray for
Rob and Ashley Connelly (Music and Technology) for their year of service
here at New Life. These two wonderful friends are feeling the Lord's
prompting to Southeastern Seminary in Wake Forest, NC. We praise God for
all they have meant to our church in the past year. We will truly miss
them. In the meantime, our church is praying for God to show us and lead us
to who would be their replacement. We feel certain that God already knows
who these people will be and we pray for the Lord's revealing and timing for
our church. We concluded our informational meeting with prayer on the altar
for our leaders. This is what our team needed as many gathered around us
prayer in the Spirit of God for protection and wisdom. We are grateful.
REGIONALLY
Our Charlottesville church plant is developing with a possible location to
meet. You will be hearing more about this in the near future but we are
excited to see these developments surface. In the meantime, we are praying
for God to bring us people to Everyday Cafe on Thursdays at 11:30 for a
Bible Study. This Bible Study has allowed us to be in the area with the
Word of God and feel out any spiritual opposition to our being there. At
present, there appears to be an opportunity in the Fall for a Sunday Night
"gathering" in a wonderful location. This initial meeting will be preceded
by prayer and canvassing the Pantops area with invites. We will be engaging
our New Life people who may feel led to help with this work to begin praying
about how they may be involved. Please pray that all of the doors that need
to be open will open for this new work to be launched. Why are we doing
this? Acts 1:8 states, "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit on
you; and you will be witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth."
GLOBALLY
We want to first thank all of you who have contributed to our Global Mission
Account. We believe God will reward you greatly for your obedience. Pray
for our Turkey team as we embark this month on 30 days of prayer
journaling. This time will be spent in prayer and fasting along with
writing down the thoughts that God has placed on our hearts for this trip.
In fact, we want you to be at New Life on June 22 for our "Commissioning
Service" for the Turkey mission trip. Our team will come forward and allow
you to pray for us as we embark on this great adventure.
I also want to remind us of our Honduras mission trip in a few weeks. Pray
the presence of God would go with this team to this foreign country. There
seems to be a change in airports where the team would fly in so now their
trip will include several hours by bus to their destination. This same
airport was in the news a few days ago as being very dangerous to land so
there have been some changes.
Thank all of your for your continued prayer support
June 4, 2008
Dear friends,
Just a reminder of our time together this past week. Our text was received
from I Corinthians 3:5-16 as Paul addresses the Corinthian church on their
motivations. I guess the one nugget that I pulled away from my study was
the fact that one day, our efforts will be inspected. Just as a building
inspector comes and does a very through check on the details of the project,
so one day we will stand before Jesus and give an account of all the things
we have done. There will be a material list and we will give an account of
the type of material that we used. If we used an inferior produce (wood,
hay, stubble), then our works were done in vain and will not stand up to
God's inspection. However, if we used the best for God (gold, silver,
precious stones), then it will last the inspection. We can give God what's
left or what's best. It is our choice. My prayer is that you stand before
God with your head up and plenty of crowns to lay at His feet. Here is what
is happening around our church lately.
LOCALLY
There were many decisions made on Sunday to the Lord and we pray that each
one will bring fruit that is lasting and strong. We want to invite you to
bring the kids out on Wednesday night to "Wednesday Warriors" with Mr.
Pelloni. He will be going over the armor of God and you parents are invited
to come and pray with us on the second floor. The mid-week service helps us
get through the week and we want to be faithful not just on Sunday but all
through the week. Wednesday Warriors begins tonight at 6:30. Also, we want
to be in prayer for a fall outreach ministry using the basketball. Pastor
John expressed his passion at our team leader meeting for reaching local
young people with the gospel. The ministry consists of inviting local
youth and young adults to New Life Community Church one night a week to play
basketball in our auditorium. This will give us time to talk and share the
gospel with those who come in. Pastor John will prepare a message and then
present the message on this night. Our prayer is that by using a
basketball, we can bring others to Christ. If you can help in this Fall
outreach (the need is for 5 committed people) then please send Pastor John
an e-mail for information at wj1012@iglide.net
We want to continue to pray for VBS this year and for the hearts of these
kids to be prepared to hear the gospel. Pray for the workers and their
preparation time. Kids are important to us and we count it a privilege to
work with God in reaching these local kids. To God be the glory.
In addition, if you're not plugged in to a Sunday School, then we believe
you are really missing out. Imagine being able to discuss in detail with
questions, the same sermon you just heard or heard a few weeks ago. Sunday
School is a great way for you to go to the next level with God and your
friends. Please consider coming this Sunday to Sunday School. It will help
you grow closer to the throne of God.
REGIONALLY
We want to continue praying for the Charlottesville Church Plant. We had a
great meeting at the Everyday Cafe on Pantops Mountain this past week. Rob
and I were talking this morning of the great need to have a more "relaxed"
atmosphere and the need to meet in the afternoon. Pray specifically that
God would send us an apartment to have Bible studies. We have been planting
seeds in Charlottesville and now we need a location to have these small
group Bible studies. Everyday Cafe has been good but the time is soon to go
the next level. Please partner with us in praying God's wisdom in this
area.
We also want to welcome Cas and Debbie Grys back from Frenchville, Maine.
Cas and Debbie volunteered with the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief team to
help flooded victims get back on track. If you are interested in
volunteering to help in times of trouble, please consider getting trained
and volunteering to help during a devastating event. Please see info below
if you are interested.
Disaster Relief Training
<http://www.sbcv.org/events/eventDetail.aspx?id=1068#top> [ to top ]Training
begins Friday, 6:30pm-9:00 pm. Continues Saturday 8:30am-3:00pm. The cost of
$30.00 includes t-shirt, hat, ID, course materials and lunch.<http://www.sbcv.org/data/images/events/SBCVDRlogo.jpg>
<http://www.sbcv.org/UI/UI_ICO_Date.gif> Jun 6 - Jun 7
<http://www.sbcv.org/UI/UI_ICO_Address.gif> Thomas Road Baptist, Lynchburg
(CW)
<http://www.sbcv.org/UI/UI_ICO_Phone.gif> 888.234.7716
GLOBALLY
We want to thank all of you for helping the Honduras Mission Team raise
close to $1500.00 on Sunday. To God be the glory. This will help send one
person to Honduras for a life changing event. Please continue to pray how
you could be a part in supporting this great work.
Also, it is less than 1 month before our team leaves for Turkey. We are now
meeting weekly for prayer and preparation and we are excited about this
work. You can find out more about what we will be doing at
www.pisidianproject.com .<http://www.pisidianproject.com/synapse/data/6383/banners/PisidianWebBanner.
JPG>Please pray how you may be a part in helping us on this mission. If you are
willing to be a prayer partner with us, please send me an email and let me
know which day you will commit to pray. We would like to know that our
friends back home are lifting us up to the throne of God. I would like to
get a prayer schedule out so you can know how to pray on each day. Thank
you again for partnering with us in the work. God will bless you for
blessing Him in reaching Turkey with the gospel. Again if the Lord sees fit
in allowing you to help us financially, please feel free to send your
tax-deductible gift to New Life Community Church, P.O. Box 502, Louisa, VA
23093 and write "Turkey Mission". When we return, we ask that you have us
in your home to share what God has done. We praise God already for the
contributions that have come in. More importantly, pray this year how you
may GO on mission with God. There are many mission opportunities at our
church to get you plugged in for God. Build your foundation on Jesus Christ
and then use these materials: gold, silver, and precious stones.
Have a great week in the Lord.
