What Are You Willing To Do?

Last week we started the brand new message series "What We Believe" by talking about John Wesley. Wesley rode 250,00 miles on horseback and preached 40,000 sermons in his lifetime so that others might come to know the love of God through Christ and follow Jesus.

What are we willing to do? While not necessarily called to ride 250,000 miles on horseback or preach 40,000 sermons are we willing:

• To give up having to know everybody in worship and allow our churches to grow?

• To give up "our" pew?

• To give up our wants, desires and preferences in terms of worship style so that our worship style might change and resonate with those who are not yet following Jesus?

• To move the location of our church in order to reach more people?

• To gain all we can, save all we can, and give all we can in order to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?

• To let someone else lead?

Jesus said those who want to gain their life must first lose it.

Lynchburg District Training

Last Saturday I had the great opportunity to be with the fine people of the Lynchburg District of the Virginia Annual Conference to present at the their District Leadership Training. Their Superintendent, Larry Davies, gave a great opening message to the day- How Big is Your Dream- How Good is Your Team. The class I taught was Evangelism- It Is All About Relationships. You can find the PowerPoint here.

This Sunday At New Season

This Sunday at New Season we are starting a brand new series of messages where we will be getting down to the basics of our roots and talking about "What We Believe." This Sunday we will be talking about the founder of Methodism John Wesley.

Starting at 10:30AM at our Four Mile Fork location in Spotsylvania.

Life, Money, Hope Recap

We finished the Life, Money, Hope message series a couple of weeks ago at New Season Church. You will find the messages from the series below. For those wishing to explore these topics further I encourage you to take advantage of the Financial Peace University class we will be offering at New Season beginning next Wednesday June 16th. You can sign up here.

The Basics of Biblical Finance

Breaking the Bondage of Debt

The #1 Myth About Money

Free HTML Newsletter Resource

I stumbled across this free HTML Newsletter resource via the good folks over at the 8 Bit Network. I have already begun using it and it seems to do the job if you have a list under 500 people. I would recommend you try MailChimp for your e-news or event announcement needs.

I have previously used Constant Contact which did the trick as well but of course was a fee based system though I am sure they too have a free or trial component but perhaps not as generous as MailChimp.

You can sign up to start using MailChimp for free here.

Total US Churches No Longer in Decline

According to research by Ed Stetzer from Lifeway Research and Warren Bird more churches were started than closed last year. This is good news though there is more to be done according to this article here to see church planting move from fad to multiplication movement.

I would be interested in the numbers for United Methodism and for the Virginia Conference as to the number of churches started this year versus the number closed.

Here are some highlights from the article:

• "[C]hurch planting is on the mind of North American Christians at unprecedented levels," they (Stetzer and Bird) write.

• That means, church planting must move from being a fad or "the next big thing" to a "passionate pursuit of the lost."

• Another obstacle is getting past the "don't we already have enough churches?" mentality. There may be a hesitancy to having a church planting emphasis because "the thinking seems to be [that] there's a church on every corner and most of them are empty," state the authors, who have led and studied church plants.

• But research shows that new churches fare better when it comes to drawing new people and they have a higher ratio of conversions and baptisms compared to more established churches, according to Viral Churches.

• Ultimately, Stetzer and Bird are hoping to see a multiplication movement, similar to what occurred between 1795 and 1810 among Methodist and Baptist churches. Within that time span, some 3,000 churches were started.

• "If church multiplication like that happened again today, it would be characterized by a 50 percent conversion rate (new believers) and a 50 percent reproduction rate (new churches) sustained for at least three generations of churches," they explain.

Read the full article here.

New Message Series- How Could God Allow Suffering and Evil?

We are beginning brand new series of messages tomorrow at New Season.

Have you ever wondered why God allows bad things to happen? If God is so loving then why doesn’t he just make things good all the time? Come and explore biblical answers to these questions at New Season Church during the upcoming message series “How Could God Allow Suffering and Evil.”

Please join us for worship at 10:30AM on Sundays at the Four Mile Fork Shopping Center (next to Hard Times). Come as you are to discover why there is suffering and evil in our world.

Invite a friend, relative, co-worker or neighbor to this message series by clicking here.

Church Planting and Revitalization Breakfast

I am working on putting together the Church Planting and Revitalization Breakfast at Annual Conference this year. The breakfast is coming together and we are lining up some great speakers again this year. Please find he details below. You can register here.

The Church Planting and Revitalization Breakfast at Annual Conference sponsored by the Church Development Team and Office of Church Development will be Tuesday, June 15, 7 a.m., at the Marriott Waterside. The cost this year is $15.45 and is inclusive. The Church Planting and Revitalization Breakfast is an annual event held at Annual Conference. The breakfast is held to celebrate the ministry of church planting and revitalization across the Virginia Conference. There will be speakers who will talk briefly about works they are currently engaged in by either planting or revitalizing churches. The breakfast is open to all clergy and laity and children are welcome. If you want to hear some dynamic speakers and be inspired by how Christ is working in the Virginia Conference as we seek to begin new faith communities and revitalize existing faith communities, then this breakfast is for you.

The breakfast will include scrambled eggs, skillet potatoes, country bacon, breakfast breads, orange juice, and coffee or tea.

Registration and payment this year is being handled online through the Conference website. Please follow this link.