Eric's Blog

Sunday Night Reflections

We continued our "3:16" series today by talking about the unfailing love of God. What a great verse. This verse is full of power, hope and love. If we could really grasp the love of God, oh how it would change our lives. His love is so awesome we cannot keep it to ourselves.

We challenged everyone to:

Pray for someone they know to receive God's love this week.

Show God's love to someone in a practical way.

Invite someone to church with them next week so they could hear about God's love.

Here are a few things I have going on this week:

Coaching Seth's tee ball games - Monday night @ 6:30 and Thursday night @ 5:30.

Wednesday night - leaders meeting with the servant evangelism team.

Thursday night - Town Hall of Hope with Dave Ramsey - 8:00 PM @ the church - www.townhallofhope.com

Friday night - New Life fun event - Clemson baseball game - we are leaving the church at 5:45 PM. Meet in the church parking lot.

Have a great week.

Sunday Night Reflections

Today was a great day. I enjoyed the music and Alisha did a great job on her special. I would like to thank the following:

• Everyone who prayed and fasted for our Easter service
• Everyone who served in a ministry today
• Everyone who went out with the Servant Evangelism team on Saturday
• Everyone who works behind the scenes like those who clean the church, count the money, and enter the connection cards after service
• Everyone who gave in our sacrificial Resurrection Seed offering.

We started a new series today called "3:16." We, as a church, need to continue to pray for those in our circle of influence that don't know Christ, invest in their lives, and invite them to our Sunday services. Don't give up if they did not come to the Easter service with you. Keep working the fields and God will give a harvest. This is going to be a great series and everyone can benefit from a in-dept look at John 3:16.

Sunday Night Reflections

It was great to be back after a week of vacation. Just did not have time to blog the week before we left because there was so much to take care of. It was the first time I have been away from the office and my kids for 7 whole days.

Today, we continued our Dangerous Church series by talking about how a dangerous church makes the most of God-given opportunities. Colossians 4:5 says, "Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity." Easter is one of the best times of the year to live out this Scripture. People are most open to God when they are in transition, in trouble, or under tension. Right now there are probably more people in these three categories than at any other time in our life.

You need to take advantage of the opportunities that we have made available for you this week and on Easter.

Opportunity #1) Sowing in the special Resurrection Seed offering. I believe there is no better time to give a sacrificial offering than Easter.

Opportunity #2) Praying and Fasting: Each of our small groups are taking a day to pray and fast this week then on Saturday and Sunday morning we are having 20 hours of prayer and fasting. Don't forget to pray on your specific day and time.

Opportunity #3) Invest and Invite: Who are you going to invest in and invite to the Easter service next week? Ask them to give you a yes or no. Try to get 5 people to commit to coming to the Easter service next week.

Opportunity #4) Servant Evangelism Project: This Saturday we will be going out to make 310 touches. We are meeting at the church at 9:45 to pray and prepare to pass out candy and invite cards. All you need to do is show up at the church at 9:45.

Opportunity #5) Friendliness: I mention this even though we probably have the friendliest church in the Central/Clemson area. This is just a reminder to everyone to reach out and help make our guests on Easter feel comfortable and welcome.

A note about prayer and fasting: over the next three days I am going to be blogging about some Scriptures that deal with how to pray for those that are outside the faith.

Sunday Night Reflections

Today we finished our Fireproof series by talking about a better way to love. Great relationships are centered on the pillars of love and forgiveness.

Three Greek words for love:

Eros: Sensual or physical love.

Phileo: Emotional or relational love.

Agape: Unconditional love. It's the deepest kind of love. It is the better way of loving.

Text: John 15: 9-13.

In verse 12 Jesus commanded us to love as he has loved us. In other words we are to love others in the same way that he has love us/

Agape is love because of what it does, not because of how it feels. Agape love is an exercise of the will, a deliberate choice. It is related to obedience and commitment, and not necessary feeling and emotion. A better way to love is simply to put others first.

This weeks challenge: Love your mate that is not self-seeking. Each time you make a decision that affects your mate, set aside your needs and make the choice that is best for him or her.

Other notes:

Seth starts t-ball practice this week.

March madness starts Thursday. I hope the Tiger's can turn it around and make a run in the tournament.

Please pray for me. I have two weeks before Alisha and I go out of town for vacation, then Easter is the week after that. There is a lot of decisions that need to be made and a lot of things that need to be done before we leave.

Construction starts tomorrow on repairing our Ministry Center Building.

Next week we start a new series called "Dangerous Church". Are you more scared of what the devil can do to you or is he more scared of what you can do to his kingdom? Don't miss the start of this new series.

That's all for now. Have a great week!

Sunday Night Reflections

We continued our Fireproof series by talking about forgiveness.

The two pillars of any good marriage are love and forgiveness.  You can't really have one without the other.  God makes it very clear in His word that without extending forgiveness towards our spouses, our friends, even the stranger in the parking lot, we are leaving an open door that allows Satan to have access to our lives (2 Cor. 2:10, 11).  We are also limiting the Lord in his ability to forgive us. 

"Forgive us our debts as we have also forgiven our debtors" was an eye opening scripture for me today, it said, very profoundly, to God - as I have forgiven the people in my life that have wronged me - I want you to use that same standard in forgiving me.  Wow...that is intense!  If I am a forgiving person, then God is going to be extremely forgiving towards me, but what if I'm not?  What if I am a person that only forgives in name and harbors ill feelings in my heart?  That means that God will not be able to extend grace and forgiveness towards me.

What an eye opening service...if you weren't there then you need the cd!

Alisha

I'm looking forward to great week of learning, training, and relationship building with our leadership team this week. Wednesday night we have our leadership meeting and we will be a part of a tele-seminar with Nelson Searcy on how to maximize Easter.

Thursday 6 of us are attending the Unleash conference at Newspring Church. Looking forward to hanging out with our ministry leaders and learning how to take our ministry to the next level.

What a beautiful day tonight. Have a great week.

Eric

Sunday Night Reflections

It was a cold, rainy, windy morning in Central. I appreciate the faithfulness of those who attend New Life every week. Today we continued our "Fireproof" series by talking about how to break free from temptation. We looked at 1 Corinthians 10:11-13.

Three truths from 1 Cor. 10:13:

1. Every temptation you face has been faced by others.

2. You have never been tempted by something you did not have the power to resist.

3. God provides a way out of every temptation.

The challenge for this week is to pray Matt. 6:13 every day. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

It snowed big time for us here in SC. Here are a few pic of me and the kids in the snow. Seth and I walked up the road to the top of the hill when there was a bright flash. I though a transformer had blown but then there was thunder. It was lighting...that was scary. They called it Thunder Snow on the news. It happened several times later that evening. I love the snow!

   

Be careful in the morning and have a great week.

Sunday Night Reflections

Today we continued our Fireproof series by talking about Love for a Lifetime. We look at Jesus' words on marriage and divorce from Matthew 19:3-9. Marriage is both a covenant and a decision and is meant to last a lifetime. The Biblical definition of love is found in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and includes actions not feelings. True love is not based on feelings.

Our Love Dare challenge for couples this week is to renew your vows to each other. If you don't have a copy of them I have include them below for you to use.

I _________, take you __________ to be my wife/husband. To have and to hold from this day forward, For better, for worse, For richer, for poorer, In sickness and in health. To love and cherish as long as we both shall live. After renewing your vows, spend a few minutes praying together about your marriage.

I am excited about Thursday. I will be attending the Catalyst One Day event in Atlanta. Andy Stanley and Craig Groeschel are speaking. I can't wait!

Sunday Night Reflections

Today was a great day. Bruce preach the second message in our Fireproof Your Marriage series called, "He First Loved Us." Next week I will be talking about "Love for a Lifetime." Since I was not preaching today I was able to go around and thank a lot of our volunteers and spend time in both of my kids classes.

I got to rock Katie while she was watching a video and have a snack with Seth and hear about their Bible story and memory verse. I really enjoyed being able to do this. One of the kids told me after the service "thank you for coming to my class" and Seth mentioned it to God tonight in his prayer. Then he gave me a big hug and thanked me for coming to his class.

Wednesday night is our leadership meeting. We have been watching the Catalyst videos from 2007 as part of our leadership training. More on that later.

Thursday is my tele-coaching network. Last week we met in Tampa, Florida for a day of face to face coaching. I really enjoyed it and was challenged in several areas.

We passed out our Resurrection Seed packets today. Our focus this year is on "Giving to God's Vision." It is based off of Exodus 25: 1-9. The vision God has given us is to hire a worship leader. The Resurrection Seed offering will be going toward bringing this person on staff. Please pray about this and ask God what He would have you do.

That's all for now. Have a great week!

Sunday Night Reflections

Today we talked about Balancing our Spiritual Life. It was a very tough message to preach. Our main passage of Scripture was Acts 2: 42-47.

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. NIV

This gives us a clear description of the values of the early church.  One of the reasons it was so difficult to preach is because we have gotten away from those early church values. We have to pull these values back into our local churches and hold people accountable to them. We have made these values into the mission of New Life. They are:

Fellowship with God:Being devoted to the teaching of God's Word and corporate worship.

Community with Others: Really loving and having compassion for other believers.

Service in Ministry: Everyone valuing their gift and using it to serve others through the local church.

Influence with those Outside the Faith: Being a Godly influence to those in our circle of relationships.

So have do you measure up to living out these four values?

Small groups start this week. If you have not signed up for one please do so as soon as possible.

Don't forget to start praying for our Big Day on February 8th. Our new series is called "Fireproof" and is based off of the movie of the same name.

Sunday Night Reflections

A few thoughts on last week, today, and the week ahead...

Last week we ended our fast with a Wednesday night time of prayer and communion. It was awesome.

Saturday we had ministry sign-ups and training. If you missed it you will have a opportunity to sign-up next Sunday.

Sunday we continued our series called "Balance." We talked about Balancing our Physical Lives. There are two weeks left in this series and the best is yet to come. We are going to be talking about balancing our spiritual lives and our finances.

Tomorrow is MLK day. Spend some time dreaming about what you want your future, your family, your finances, and your church to look like. All things are possible!!!

Tuesday we swear in a new president. That is going to be major. Lot's of events and media coverage.

Wednesday night Clemson plays North Carolina in basketball. Big game!

Thursday is my tele-coaching call with Nelson Searcy. Can't wait for that.

Our next series starts February 8 and is going to be a great series on marriage.