On August 25th, we’re hosting an event called PULSE. This for all middle and high school students (6th-12th grade).

We’re having the NewSpring Band play along with special guest DJ Spinskillz. Adrian Depres will be bringing it hard from the WORD. The whole purpose of the night is to introduce kids to Jesus so do whatever you can to get as many middle and high school students there as possible. We wanna see a ton of kids accept Jesus for the first time so the night’s completely FREE.

We’ll be giving away iPHONEs, MacBooks, video iPODs, iPOD NANOs, iTUNES Giftcards and much more! It’s going to be crazy! If you don’t believe me…check out the picture below…

You’re seeing it right…those are the 2 iPHONEs we’ll be giving away to any Middle School or High School Student that comes to PULSE on August 25th! See you there!

Tonight was a great night! We decided to go without chairs. It was crazy, sometimes you get those groups of students who talk a little bit more without the structure of chairs. Although it was sort of neat to see all the students clumped up together at the front! We had a lot of first-time visitors, which is always great. Best thing of tonight was that we had 6 students accept Christ as their Lord and Savior! Also we had over 277 people accept Christ at the main service at NewSpring! God is so awesome!

Here is the recap from the night:
Attendance: Above Average - Up from the previous week…always a good thing
Music: Average
Message: Above Average - Felt the message went really well. I started the invitation within 19 minutes from starting. I always try to keep it right at 20 minutes.
Topic: HEROES: FAITH - David
Fun Factor: Above Average - We played “Straw War,” where you divide the room in half, each student gets a straw and you throw out 2 different color q-tips. They shoot them through the straw to the other side, etc.
Crowd Involvement: Above Average
Volunteer Involvement: Below Average - We were missing a lot of leaders…Small groups were crazy due to the lack of attendance of our leaders, but I am sure that will be corrected next week!

Here are my notes from tonight:

HEROES: FAITH - DAVID
1 Samuel 17 & Hebrews 11:1

David faced Goliath in an epic battle of man vs. beast.

Why did David believe that he could face the giant, when no one believed that he could? FAITH

Hebrews 11:1, “Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.”

There are a couple of things we need to remember:

• David was sure that the giant could be defeated. v.32-37
• David never saw anyone beat the giant. v.24
• David’s faith was in the Lord Almighty. v.45-47

Because of David’s faith…He was able to:

• Stand strong.
• Accomplish more than anyone else.
• Defeat the giant. v.50

vs.

For a couple of months I have been using Bloglines to keep up with the many blogs that I follow. Latley, I have heard a lot of people talk about how they use Google Reader.

Got some questions:

• Which one do you use?
• Is there another out there that is better than the these two?
• What are the advantages of them over the others?
• Any interesting/helpful shortcuts?

Someone let me know which one is best to use between Google Reader and Bloglines?

We are in the middle of some crazy hot weather here in South Carolina. Apparently, so is Texas, specifically Houston. Check out what one guy did to escape the heat when he had no A/C in his car.

No A/C In Your Car? Check Out This Fix

That is straight awesomeness!!!

Here is an update of the service projects we have done the past couple of days:

Tuesday:

• Yardwork for the Anderson Crisis Pregnancy Center at their new home for unwed pregnant ladies.
• Trash Pickup at Lakeside Middle School (Lakeside is one of large feeder schools to our ministry).

Wednesday:

• Yardwork at the Calvary Children’s Home
• Trash Pickup at McCants Middle School (McCants is our largest feeder school to our ministry).

Also we had an increase in the number of participants…76 for the past two days. Tomorrow is our last day of our mission to continue to serve the community. Tomorrow we will head back to AIM and also go to Wren Middle School to pickup trash and help clean the campus.  Got to get some sleep before the EARLY morning rolls around.

Simple math…simple addition…not so simple when planning an event. This week we have Mission:Anderson, an opportunity for our current 6th, 7th, and 8th grade students to minister to the Anderson community. During these four days we are going to spend time learning what it means to serve others by doing various projects in the Anderson area!

On Sunday, we had 45 students signed up. On Monday morning at the end of check-in, we had 70 students ready to rock and roll. After some scrabbling to get an extra van, we were ready. By the way, what an awesome problem to have…more and more students wanting to serve their community! We had two groups serve at the Boys & Girls Club of Anderson and Anderson Interfaith Ministry (AIM). Both groups finished earlier than expected, so we were again scrambling to find work for them to do in a mission to serve the community.

Needless to say, it was HOT today! The average high for august is 89 degrees. Today the temperature was a whopping 98 degrees with 35% humidity. It is not expecting to set any easier for us on a mission to serve Anderson…we are expecting 99 degree weather. Check out the information here. We will be hot, but honestly…it is hotter in hell. (Speaking of Hell, please go and watch the service from this past week. Awesome, great, exciting! You will be surprised!) Also, who said serving was a easy thing to do…sometimes serving take commitment and a little bit of extra effort. Please pray for us as we endure the heat. Peace!

There is no way that this felt good…be sure to watch till the end for replays!

Congratulations to the Camo Crabs, the winners of the INFERNO 2007. The awesome thing about this group is that they finished last in the first 2 challenges, but came back to win. I had to judge this group for the first couple of challenges and they had their struggles, but they came together as a team and rocked it out!

The Inferno with Millbrook Baptist Church NewLife Student Ministry at Garden City Chapel has ended. Brandon Bowers and his crew did an awesome job with their camp. They did a great job with the games and team competition. Andrew and I had an awesome time hanging out with the students. Each night worship was through the roof. We studied Daniel 3 all week long. Thursday night I challenged the students to live the changed life, a life that has been changed from the inside out by Jesus Christ. We also talked about how the changed life will affect the people around them, how Jesus will use the changed life to draw people closer to him, how Jesus can use the changed life to do more than anyone can ever expect.

I look forward to hear what God is going to do in the lives of the students that were at the Inferno this week. They have a great group of students that is very diverse and desires to do some awesome things through Christ. Brandon has a great team around him, the adult volunteers are excited, and the church is supportive…those are a lot of the elements you need to reach students for Christ and to see some awesome things happen.  Peace!