So excited - Sunday

Just got up from a very refreshing 2 hour nap. Church this morning was awesome. All 4 NewSpring campuses met together at the BiLo Center in Greenville. Through the pouring rain 15,000 people came to worship God, celebrate the amazing gift of His Son, Jesus, and the lives He has changed through NewSpring in the last 10 years.

I thought about the 5th anniversary celebration. It was great, at the time, but now so "Kmart".

Perry announced our 5th location will be Charleston. Some of us from Spartanburg said people HERE need Jesus. You can tell because Spartanburg is the lead story on the local news every night for some killing, violence, or other craziness.

He briefly mentioned to Greenville that we should pack out the BiLo Center twice EVERY Sunday. Sounds crazy, I know, but then I thought even if 30,000 attended that campus thousands of people in Greenville would STILL be outside the kingdom and need Jesus.

Now I can look forward to March 4th and the Unleash conference. It is SO fun to volunteer that day and encourage church leaders. NewSpring isn't the church for everyone, and God is way more creative than we are. Unleash is about doing church the way God has called YOU to reach people with God's love expressed in Jesus.

Time to quit typing on this tiny Droid and get something to eat. Oh, by the way, probably 400 people got saved today by accepting the free gift of Jesus and making him Lord of their life. That's why we do church.

So excited - Thursday

New bunny at our house. Pics coming soon. Blogging tonight from the Droid so I'm limited.

So excited - Wednesday

Wednesday I'm talking to a new lawyer in town and find out she just moved from VA to Greenville for her husband's job. So I say What are you doing Sunday? Nothing, why? Come to church with me. We are meeting at the BiLo Center. Intrigued, she says OK.

WOW That was easy. And exciting. Later I emailed her a link to the website invite. Hope Kim will come.

So excited - Tuesday

I could hardly get to sleep last night. We volunteered at membership class. I didn't park her, greet her, check her in, or serve her dinner. But when the program was over I assimilated her and was the first person she told that she had just prayed and accepted Jesus. Right there. At membership class, she nailed it down and made sure she had Jesus as her Lord and Savior. It was so cool to be the first to say Cool. Welcome. Congrats.

Happy NEW Year

Wow. We are already 1/3 of the way through the first month of this new decade. Time flies. So far, so good in 2010.

Alan starts school tomorrow, a new structure and routine in our life.

Two weeks to the big 10th anniversary of NewSpring celebration at the BiLo Center in Greenville. I remember the 5th anniversary at the Civic Center in Anderson. I still have the cloth bags handed out that day in my grocery sack collection. There were tremendous traffic jams that day. Perry warned today of similar problems this time. "Come early. Car pool and be nice in traffic."

God HAS done amazing things in people's lives through NewSpring. I know our life is radically different today than it was 5 years ago because of our involvement with NewSpring - home group, volunteering, getting our finances in shape. Our attitude and knowledge of Jesus and the Bible is different too.

It has been unusually cold here lately. I took this picture at a local restaurant the other night. Why? I'm not really sure. It just struck me as an icon.

I've only eaten at the Beacon twice in the 4 years I've lived in Spartanburg. We took the crew who helped us move here from Greenwood to the Beacon to eat on the day we moved. And we took the two interns Alan worked with at Nestle, just for the experience. It's nostalgic that places like this exist, but food like that will kill you "a plenty."