New Life Church Eads--1 Year Anniversary

Praise God!

This Sunday, June 20th, will mark the one year anniversary for New Life Church Eads. We are grateful to God for establishing a gospel presence in Eads. A gospel presence that seeks to shine the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ, who is the image of God and not the light or knowledge of man, for we humbly preach Christ Jesus as Lord (2 Corinthians 4.4-5).

May God continue to fill us with His Spirit and may we truly abide in Christ and in the demonstration of the Spirit and of power!

So rejoice in the Lord New Life Church and all those who are grateful to God for gospel planting.

Spring Forward Into Eads!

Spring Forward Into Eads is our theme for our outreach efforts to Eads this spring. We will also have some in-reach focus as well. We will have two major events that we will make a push for this spring and they are: Celebrate the Resurrection and The Eads BBQ Fest. Listed below are the details of everything going on this spring. We would definitely appreciate your prayers as the Holy Spirit would bring us to your mind.

CELEBRATE THE RESURRECTION

Evangelism Sermon Series: Over the next four weeks Pastor Keith will be preaching a series on evangelism. Learn what Scripture says about why we should share the gospel, what is the gospel, and how we should share the good news of the gospel.

Adopt a neighborhood: We have chosen 6 neighborhoods for our NLC families to pray for.

Prayer Driving: Each NLC family will choose a time to go prayer driving through their adopted neighborhood between March 13th and April 3rd.

Door-to-door Outreach: On March 27th we will Spring Forward Into Eads and go door-to-door in our adopted neighborhoods. Please pray for God to go before us and bear much fruit.

Annie Armstrong Offering: We will be participating in this effort to support our North American Missions, which New Life Church is a part of this effort.

The Cross He Bore: This wonderful book depicts the last days of Christ from the garden to the cross. We were blessed to have read it last year and we will read it again this year starting on Sunday, March 21st. We will take a chapter a day and finish reading the book on Good Friday, April 2nd.


THE EADS BBQ FEST

Eads BBQ Fest: On Saturday, April 10th, NLC will participate in the BBQ festival at the Eads Civic Center. More details to come…

NLC---Sunday Morning Service Cancelled!

Dear NLC,

I just wanted to inform you that the Pastor's Council has decided to cancel our Sunday Service due to weather. As of right now several of our families are pretty much iced in and will have a difficult time getting to the main roads from their homes. Currently the temperature is 28 degrees with a low overnight expected to be 15 degrees. So it shouldn't change things too much. Our mother church Lakewood has also cancelled services.

Please do not take the morning off. Go ahead and prepare to have a Sunday morning worship time with your family. Be sure to have a time of prayer, singing, and scripture discussion. It will be a sweet time before the Lord and with one another.

Lord willing we'll see you all on Wednesday evening for Life Group!

In Christ,
Pastor Keith

Pastoring Through Music

Our worship leader at NLC, Tom Owen, has compiled for our church a pretty good list of websites that offer solid biblical music. He sent out this email to our church to shepherd our people for individual worship, family worship and to even prepare us for some of the songs that are coming to our church in the near future.

I've asked him if he wouldn't mind me posting his email to our church here on my blog. And with his permission here it is...
_____________________________________

Below are some links to some of the music we are doing and will do at church. All the music you will find on these sites are great.

There is a link to RUF.com that will have a lot of the actual sheet music to the songs we are doing in church, if anyone is interested.

http://www.igracemusic.com/

http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/home.html (RUF)

http://www.sovereigngracemusic.org/

http://www.sojournmusic.com/albums/

http://andrew-peterson.com/index.php?s=gl&nid=76657

http://www.leadworship.com/GloriousCD/Glorious.html

http://www.worshipmusic.com/paulbaloche.html

Thanks Tom! You've been a means of God's grace to all of us at New Life Church. We thank God for you brother!

What Is The Glory Of God?

This was a question asked to John Piper and in his response he basically says that that's a good question and since we use the phrase so often we should know what it means when we say it.

So, John Piper, what is the glory of God?

"What is it? I believe the glory of God is the going public of his infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God. And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and human beings are manifesting his glory, because we're created in his image, and we're trusting his promises so that we make him look gloriously trustworthy.

The public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God is what I mean by "glory," and I base that partly on Isaiah 6, where the seraphim say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and you would expect them to say "holiness" and they say "glory." They're ascribing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and when that goes public in the earth and fills it, you call it "glory."

So God's glory is the radiance of his holiness, the radiance of his manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections."

Our vision statement for New Life Church reflects this understanding from Piper:

"New Life's Vision is to fulfill God's eternal purpose for creating the church, by living our lives in such a way, that we accurately display God's wisdom and glory to all of creation."

Our prayer is that God 'will' manifest His glory in Eads, Tennessee through His Church, and that becomes a reality by living our lives in such a way that will accurately display His glory.

Pray for accuracy!

To God Be The Glory!

Today is a glorious day in the Kingdom of God.

Today is a glorious day within the scope of redemption history.

Because on this day, God has established a new church....a tower of light that will beam the light of the gospel of the glory of Jesus Christ for all to see.

Today, on this day, the true gospel of repentance and faith in Jesus Christ is now available to all people who live in the Eads community and abroad.

This is a glorious day for the glory of Christ and the good of the world.

It is our urgent prayer that the glory of Christ will always fly high over New Life Church and this community!

We ask that you pray with us to this end.

(first words from Pastor Keith for NLC's Grand Opening Celebration)

TO GOD BE THE GLORY......GREAT THINGS HE HAS DONE!

Tom Owen And New Life Church

Well today God brought us a worship leader for New Life Church. His name is Tom Owen and he brings with him a great mind for worship, filled with a heart for ministry to the body of Christ.

We are praising God for Tom and his wife Stephanie and their children. God knew what kind of leader we needed in the area of music and He sent us just the man to help us lay a foundation for worship that will serve us by starting off right from the very beginning.

Thank you Lord for Tom and his ministry to New Life Church and Eads, TN.

But it also goes without saying that we are thankful to God for Shawn & Julie Troxel as well. They have been leading our worship on Sunday mornings for over 2 months and they have blessed us tremendously by pointing our thoughts and hearts toward Christ each week.

We are praying for you both as the Lord will soon bless you with your third child!

God is so kind to the New Life Family!

Special Invitation

We are gearing up for our public launch this Sunday, June 21st.

If you live or happen to be in the Memphis area this weekend, please feel free to come and worship with us.

Our service time on Sunday morning is 10.30 am.

We meet at 12100 Highway 64 (right across from Dan West Garden Center).

Please lift New Life Church up before our heavenly and ask His favor upon our people as we gather this Sunday to worship Him!

You can check out New Life Church's website by clicking here or you can click the link just to the left.

If you plan to visit, please shoot us an email or you can let us know by leaving a comment in the 'comment section'.

Thank You!

New Life Church Is Now Online

Today we launched our website to Eads and to the world. As of right now we only have our front page online, but the rest will be coming very soon.

Please spread the word that New Life Church is online and soon we'll be an open book for everyone to read what we are all about!

Check us out at www.nlceads.org

Thanks!

Neighborhood Blitz...

Today we began inviting Eads to worship with the New Life Church family. We were able to meet many people today and invite them to our first ever public celebration service on June 21st.

Please pray with us that God will begin to use us as the light of the world. A city on a hill. To draw all kinds of people to Himself and for Himself.

Thank you for your many prayers!

For All Our Laboring And Striving....

Colossians 1.29

"And for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."

The purpose for our labor & striving....is to see every one complete in Christ (v.28). When we have this kind of focus for our 'laboring & striving' over the next two weeks....it should be done in 'His power', which is mightily working within in us. And His power is displayed for others to see, so that it is not ourselves in which we derive strength to 'labor & strive', but the power of God Himself gives you your strength.

So therefore, go labor today in His power. Go strive today in His power. So that one day, everyone might be made complete in Christ!

Two Week Sprint....

We are in our two week sprint for launch day!

It has already been a wild and crazy two days, for me, to the beginning of this two weeks. Our folks at New Life Church are definitely gearing up for this effort and it has been exciting.

I will do my best to keep an update going on as we begin to 'knock out' all our projects.

Please continue to pray for us as we sprint, in faith, toward the goal of seeing the glory of Christ manifested in Eads, TN.

God is building His Church!

Prayer Request...

New Life Church is a little more than two weeks away from going public to Eads, Tennessee. All of our families (the Andersons, Blessings, Shearers, Troxels, and Whittens) have been working diligently over the last several months in order to prepare for this launch day on June 21st!

Would you go before our heavenly Father and ask Him to give us His wisdom and strength to persevere in faith as we labor to finish all the remaining details in order for our church to be ready for June 21st?

We will be going door-to-door on June 13th inviting people to our first public service. The building that God has provided us seats about 60. Because of our seating, we will target neighborhoods in phases over the next several months. So, on June 13th, we are targeting 60 homes near our church.

We still have a lot to accomplish, but by God's grace, we have definitely come a long way in the last four months. Once June 21st comes, this will only usher us into a new chapter into our church's ministry life, but for now we need God's people praying for us to this end.

Would you pray right now for us?

Pray for God's favor over our new church and our community of Eads.
Pray for God to go before us and breathe new life into dead souls.
Pray for God to do a sovereign work of grace in our own lives.
Pray for God to fill us with His Spirit.
Pray for God to allow us to meet a lot of people on June 13th as we invite them to church.
Pray for God to specifically work in these 60 homes that we are targeting.
Pray that our labor will be a sweet fragrant aroma of worship to God that will permeate this community for the glory of Christ and the salvation of hundreds and thousands of people!

If you would commit to praying for us, please leave us a comment, so that we can thank God for your faithfulness to His Church and Kingdom.

Thank you for praying for New Life Church!

Colossians Sermon Series

Today I started my sermon prep for our new sermon series at New Life Church. We will begin to study the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Colossae. This will piggy-back on our last sermon series of looking to Christ.

This will be a 17 part sermon series through this wonderful letter from God to His people. Please pray for me as I prepare for these sermons and more importantly to live these sermons. But also please pray that we as a church would stand firm on Christ, by always remembering that Christ is indeed Divine, by guarding ourselves from the pagan philosophies of the day and by living our lives in such a way that is worthy of Jesus Christ!

"Of this church I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God bestowed on me for your benefit, that I might fully carry out the preaching of the word of God," ~ Colossians 1.25

Looking To Christ...

Well this last Sunday, on Mother's Day, I finished my first sermon series at New Life Church. We have been in a series entitled "Looking To Christ". This was an effort, for all of us at NLC, to look to Christ instead of the leadership, the ministries, the community, etc.

Over the last 5 weeks, we looked to Christ as Lord over His Church (2 Corinthians 4.1-6), we looked to Christ as the foundation of His Church (1 Corinthians 3.10-15), we looked to Christ as the exact representation of God (Hebrews 1.1-3), we looked to Christ as the perfect example for humility (Philippians 2. 5-11), and last week we finished out our series by looking to Christ as the One who is worthy to receive glory in all things forever (Romans 11.33-36).

My hope in preaching these passages and emphasis was to make sure that NLC always looks to Christ. There is a temptation for the sheep to ultimately look to the shepherd (small 's') and I wanted to lay a good foundation upon God's Word that we are to find that kind of vision in Christ alone. There is also a temptation for the shepherd (small 's') to have the sheep ultimately look to him. We can NEVER go wrong by looking to Christ in all matters of the church, especially a new church, when we have so many good things that we need to do for Him. This will guard us from looking to ourselves and to each other as we persevere in the kingdom of God.

Please pray for New Life Church as we continue to 'Look to Christ' in all things, so that we can please Him and better edify our people at NLC and truly reach our community with a Christ-centered evangelism that aims to see true repentance and faith in the life of our community!

Praise God!

We had our very first service today....on this Resurrection Sunday! I would like to first thank God for His faithfulness and kindness to us. We are definitely not entitled to serve and to have this kind of minitry.

This morning we were able to have a time of scripture reading, install our core group as members of New Life Church, a sermon over 2 Corinthians 4.1-6 (preaching Jesus Christ as Lord over NLC) and worship by observing the Lord's Supper. We had 39 in attendance this morning which was awesome.

God has been guiding our family to be a part of this new plant now for almost 2 years and we have been meeting with our core group for 8 months. We will now meet as a core group of members for 6-8 weeks on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights and then make ourselves known to our community with intentional ways for honoring Christ and reaching out to the people in this area of Eads, Tn.

Please continue to pray for our Pastor's Council and our new church as we smooth out any rough edges that come up over the next couple of months.

Thank you to all of you who have been keeping our family and New Life Church before our Heavenly Father.

Praise God!
Pastor Keith

New Life Church -- Our First Sunday!

I would ask that you pray for our church. This Sunday, April 12th on Resurrection Sunday, will be our very first corporate worship time together. We are very excited about God establishing His church in Eads, TN.

My wife and I have been anticipating this day now, for about 2 years. It's been a long and fruitful process. God has blessed us with several families who love Jesus and love His Church. They are as committed to New Life Church as we are and that is truly a means of God's grace. We purposed in our hearts for this church to not be about Keith or Stephanie Blessing, but to be Christ's Church where we are His servants to His people (2 Corinthians 4.5).

Please pray that God will manifest His glory and wisdom (Ephesians 3.10) through New Life Church in Eads. Pray that the Holy Spirit will go before us and breathe new life into dead souls (Titus 3.5-6). Pray that the preaching of God's Word will bring about faith and repentance in people's lives (Romans 10.17). Pray that the banner of Christ's glory will always fly high at New Life Church and throughout Eads (1 Peter 4.11).

Thank you for your prayers!
Pastor Keith

Thank You Lord! Thank You Grace Church!

Our Church, New Life Church, is preparing to have our very first service this Sunday, Resurrection Sunday. One thing though....we don't have a single chair. I know it's not always a given, but we have been seeking Christ and praying for Him to provide us some chairs. Tonight I just received an email from Pastor Bryan Smith over at Grace Church and they are going to allow us to borrow some of their chairs they have in storage.

We are praising God tonight for using Grace Church to be a means of His grace to us!

Praise God!

Tonight at our Core Group Meeting for New Life Church....we unanimously affirmed our church's constitution.

Praise God....He is faithful to build His church!