Alright, I am in the middle of a crazy stretch of a speaking schedule (10 things in 10 or 11 days). Tonight and Sunday are the two things that I am JACKED up about. Tonight I am speaking for FUSE, the high school ministry of NewSpring Church, and I have not spoken at FUSE in a looooong time! Actually, the last time that I spoke for FUSE, I spoke on the issue of sex. Needless to say, it was tense, fun, and amazing all rolled into one message. Anyways, I am really excited because this will be the last service for FUSE. On Sunday, I am speaking for IGNITE, our middle school ministry, and this will be our last service. I am excited about the message God has laid on my hear to share with the Middle School and High School students that attend NewSpring.
I know some of you maybe asking why are both of these ministries having their last meeting all in the same week? What is the deal with this and what in the world is going on? Is NewSpring no longer doing middle school ministry on one night and high school ministry on another night? Well, the answer to that is YES! NewSpring is no longer doing IGNITE, middle school ministry and FUSE, high school ministry. We are going to be changing things up a little, well actually…a whole lot.
Beginning on October 31st, we will be…….
……
……
……
meeting together (6th grade-12th grade) as a UNITED Student Ministry, on the same night, at the same place, at the same time. Over the past couple of months, we have really felt hat God is leading us to try something different. There are many reasons for our change.
Here are a couple of the quick reason why we are making a change:
- The current facility we are in, the 2Seven, is at max capacity and we are not going to be in our new building for another year. Currently, we are out of room to grow and if you are out of room to grow, you will NOT continue to grow. Solution: We are going to move to the main auditorium on the NewSpring Campus. (This will give us over 2,000 seats to grow into!)
- We believe that we will better stewards of the resources God has given us. We will also be able to work/excel in our individual strengths and passions as a ministry staff.
- Most importantly, God is leading us in this direction.
I think that this move and change will be amazing stretch of ministry for our students and our church. We are looking forward to this and I cannot wait to see what God is going to do!
With that said, most of my post will be focusing more on student ministry as a whole instead of being middle school specific. I am looking forward to journaling and blogging about our experiences. I got to run to prepare for FUSE tonight! Peace!!
Hey man, should be interesting to see your posts from here on out! I am interested in how this will affect:
-the communication of the message to a
W I D E variety of students, from pre-pubescent to in some cases out on their own.
-attendance on both ends of the spectrum
Keep us updated!
First, may I say you hit a HUGE homerun tonight at Fuse!!! Great job Alden! And may I also say that I am SO STINKING EXCITED about where God is taking this youth ministry I am about to bust!!!
Whatever, Whenever…. as long as I am physically able to, the answer is YES!!!
Thank you for being such a willing and obedient servant! And thank you for allowing me to be a small part of such a HUGE revolution!!!
Leslie
Chris,
Thanks for your comment! All of the issues yo mentioned are ones that we are interested in as well. We realize that this will stretch and push us in many areas, especially communicating to the students. I will definitely be posting a HONEST review of how I think we are doing in that area. I will say that we have some plans to try some things we have never done. From the attendance aspect we will be tracking that very closely to monitor each grade and areas. BTW, it looks like you are rocking it out with RADEUS!! Keeping rocking it for Jesus.
Alden
Leslie,
You are always an encouragement to me and the Student Ministry staff. We will definitely let you and Dan know exactly what we need! Thank you for being willing and available to serve.
LET THE REVOLUTION BEGIN!!!!
When I was driving to catalyst last mouth from Raleigh, I got off in Anderson to fill-up my tank and my stomach. As pulled into the gas station, I looked over my shoulder and I saw 2seven with Newspring’s logo on a sign out front of this really small building. I turned to my wife and said, “Wow that’s small for a big church.”
It gave me encouragement to focus more on my message and not focus on having more space. If you guys can use that building, then I know God will work anywhere. Please keep posting on how the combined thing will work since this is the state my ministry is in and I would love your insight on how to handle the wide age range.
Wow…I don’t know if I have ever read or heard about a ministry wanting to combine. It’s typically working towards splitting because of the vast developmental issues between that big of an age group. I can’t wait to hear how it goes.
Peace
Jason
Hey man are you the whole show now or did you guys retain the High School pastor as well (I don’t know who he is)?
Our student ministry at CrossPoint Church in Birmingham/Trussville, AL combined on Aug 22 of this year. We had approximately 115 2 weeks before we combined. We are now running 550-600 and growing. We’ve seen well over 100 salvations and over 50 baptisms in the past 2-1/2 months. (Of course, the critics are coming out in droves.) The church is almost 3 yrs old and if you combined attendance in 3 identical AM serivces, we average 1500 total on Sunday morning.
The high schoolers are pulling the middle schoolers along and the middle schoolers are being stretched and challenged to be leaders.
Now we desperately need to add a 2nd (and 3rd and 4th) staff person to handle it. Right now we are only working with one full time guy and a ton of volunteers.
God is at work and the glory goes to HIM!!
That’s great man! I’d love to hear how the “process” goes for you guys. We too are in BIG transition phase in our ministry and it’s awesome to see that God is shaking things up other places too.
One thing i’m trying to do right now is document EVERY step in this journey…Let us know how things are going.
Godspeed
DC
Very exciting!!! We are in month 4 of the same process – has been very exciting and challenging, but mostly FUN to communicate with the group – will watch for details from you!
Gus
Any updates on how this is going??? I am pretty curious…