Hey New Passion Friends!
We’ve been talking over the last three weeks about our move to Patriots Park on Sunday, September 12. I can’t wait! Many of you have expressed to me your excitement for this opportunity we have as a church. To make it even more exciting, we are also celebrating our 1 year birthday as a church on this same Sunday!
To be honest, I was worried at first because typically when a church makes a big decision that God is leading them to, there are those detractors who let their displeasure of the decision be known to the world, and since we didn’t have any detractors within the church, I was a little worried whether or not this may be the opportunity from God that I thought it was. But then I was encouraged by Joshua 1. (vs 1-9) God gives specific instructions to Joshua (vs 10-15) Joshua passes those instructions on to the people and then in verse 16 the Scripture says this, “They [the people] answered Joshua, “We will do whatever you command us, and we will go wherever you send us.” I now believe that you, our New Passion family, are like those Israelites, and are simply in-tune to what God is leading us to as a church!
Here’s Some of the Important Stuff You Need to Know:
- We are throwing a Birthday Bash for our people and the Community after service on the 12th to celebrate what God has done in and though New Passion in our first year. We want to highlight the memories while looking to the future of what God’s going to do next!
- We need you to sign-up to help with the Birthday Bash! This is one opportunity that we have to represent Jesus to our community. Go Here to sign-up as a volunteer, to loan us equipment, or to send us a birthday gift to help with the expenses.
- Our promo door hangers will be in very last minute as I said in our previous emails due to confirmations we had to wait on. When they arrive I am sending out a Red Alert Email with the various opportunities where you can meet us and hit the neighborhoods between their arrival and the 12th. It is vital, if you can help, to come and help us get the word out.
- Just-in case anyone else is wondering: We are not moving due to problems (a) in attendance (b) financially or (c) Fill in the Blank.
- In fact, we’ve grown 260% since our launch on September 13, 2009 and 13% over the last 5-weeks. If anything, that made the decision to move a little tougher!
The Pros
- We can set-up some Saturday evenings (if we need to) and we can set-up earlier on Sunday mornings for one set price. At the school we had to pay for each hour and for every room.
- Patriots Park is going to allow us to utilize some of their storage space and leave one of our trailers on the property, this will eliminate the need to carry two trailers on Sunday, everything will be at the location.
- All of our PassionKidz areas will have A/C and heat. The Grove, our worship environment for birth – PreK, had to utilize the hallways at the school where there is no A/C or Heat.
- Cheaper. Yes, we’ve grown, but we were still limited on what we could do as a church. The rent at the school was extremely expensive and due to our limited start-up funds, we’ve used everything extra to get where we are today in equipment and supplies (Praise God we have been able to pay the rent and do the missions we’ve done throughout our first year – it’s been amazing!) – This will free us up to start saving towards a building (down the road), adding staff (down the road), and increase our missions involvement (Right Away!).
- We believe the change in location will help open new opportunities to lead more people to a passionate relationship with Jesus!
- The larger meeting space allows us to grow without having to add a second service too soon.
- The contract with the school had one more year, which means we would have had to have a new location picked out within about 6-9 months, now we are set longer term if we need it until we can find a more permanent location in the future.
- Padded Chairs 🙂
The Cons
- Our worship service will be held approximately 6 miles outside of where we desire to minister long-term, in the city of Grovetown (we’re still in G-town, just on the outskirts now), however, God is bigger than 6 miles and one small overpass. Our local missions focus will still be in the city, so our team is not concerned with the short distance (God’s brought us this far, and if you asked a lot of the people who knew we were starting a church 12 months ago, if we’d survive, if they were honest, they would probably tell you they didn’t. We’re cool with that. And that is why we keep trusting God and not the opinions of man!).
- That’s all….
So, there it is! If you have not done so already go ahead and subscribe to this blog via email so you can get any additional updates on our move directly in your inbox, as well, any additional thoughts on life, leadership, and ministry from Nick!
Year 2, here we come!
Not too shabby for a church that turned 9 months old this past Sunday and who runs an average of 80-85 people, half of which are children.