Alden Ellis » News

You DON’T Want to Miss This!!

Alden — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 15:42:36 +0000

I am so excited about January 24th! This is the day that we will be celebrating NewSpring Church’s 10 Year Anniversary at the Bi-Lo Center in Greenville, SC! It is going to be AMAZING! Trust me when I say that you DON’T want to miss it. We are expecting over 15,000 people to attend. If you live in Columbia, you can ride with us. We are chartering buses to take the Columbia Campus. Sign up here if you would like to ride with us!

To get ready for it, take a look at the promo video we showed at our Christmas Services:

NewSpring 10th Anniversary promo from NewSpring Production on Vimeo.

NewSpring Columbia Shoe Giveaway

Alden — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:12:39 +0000

Yesterday was incredible! I was able to lead a team of 25 volunteers to Harbison West Elementary School and give each child a brand new pair of New Balance shoes. It was so awesome!! WIS-TV came and did a story on it and it ended up being a great story. Check it out here:

Columbia Campus Update

Alden — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 20:58:25 +0000

Last Thursday was a GREAT night. We had 36 people attend our first vision event. We are hosting another Vision Event, TOMORROW night at 7PM at the Saluda Shoals Park River Center. Feel free to invite your friends and family or anyone that you know that needs to hear about NewSpring Church!

Also, we are having a Campus Cleanup Day, this SATURDAY, Aug. 29th at 9AM. Bring gloves and any tools you may have, especially: shovels, rakes, wheelbarrows, weedeaters, etc. We would love to have you join us! This is a great opportunity to start serving the people who will be attending the campus!!

Lastly, we will have our FIRST Membership Class on Monday, Aug. 31st at 6:30 PM at the Saluda Shoals Park River Center. You can sign up for Membership Class by going to this link. Be sure to select the Columbia Campus.

We are excited about being in Columbia and look forward to meeting all of you. Hopefully will see you soon at one of our many events in the next couple of days!

Welcome John Shelton!!

Alden — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 15:58:24 +0000

It has been a long process to get everyone on the team for our Columbia Campus, but I am excited to say that we have hired our final position of our Children’s Director. I will honestly admit that I thought that the hiring a Children’s director would be the first hire I would have made, but God saw that differently. God wanted me to be patient and wait on the right person for the role, so after a long wait…

John Shelton has accepted the offer to serve as the Columbia Children’s Director. John is going to be GREAT addition to our team and he will do a phenomenal job in leading our Children’s Ministry in Columbia.

John is blessed to be married to Linda, who he has been married to for over 20 years, and has 3 amazing kids, John Jr., Noah, and Carly. To get to know John check out his blog: www.johnshelton.org. God has had his hand over this family and has been doing some great stuff in their lives and I know that is going to continue as they are obedient to God’s plan for their lives.

Here are some random facts about John:

He LOVES the Texas Longhorns…he needs a little Gamecock love .
He worked in a flower shop for a time…can’t say much about that, as I did the same thing.
Lived in Brazil for 5 years.
At one time aspired to be a famous musician…his son, John, Jr., looks like one of the Jonas brothers. Seriously…no lie!!
Loves Jesus and has a heart for children to meet Jesus on their level!

Please be praying for his family as they make this awesome move and start the process of getting everything settled in Columbia.

Welcome to the team John!

NewSpring Columbia Campus

Alden — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 02:55:15 +0000

A location has been set! Perry announced today during our services that we have signed a lease for a building on Broad River Road off of I-26 (Exit 101-A). The property was used by Gateway Baptist Church to do some amazing ministry. God has blessed them with new facilities and they have been gracious enough to allow us to rent their old facilities. Gateway has been AWESOME during this time! They are VERY KINGDOM-MINDED and want to see the name of Jesus made famous in Columbia and all over the world! God is using them to reach people and we pray that God blesses them in some amazing ways!!

We are VERY excited about the potential this holds for reaching the Columbia area. We are looking to launch by the end of September, so get ready Columbia! It is going to a GREAT ride.

Here is a shot of the location from Google Maps:

View Larger Map

Columbia Campus Updates

Alden — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 13:28:54 +0000

I know that over the past couple of weeks that my blog has been consumed with videos and information on my son, but coming in the next couple of days will be some announcements about our NewSpring Columbia Campus. We have some things that are coming together very nicely and I very excited about the possibilities that lie ahead. Please be praying with us about these decisions and announcements!!!

Making the name of Jesus famous one life at a time!!

Introducing NewSpring Columbia Campus Worship Leader

Alden — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:30:50 +0000

On April 1st I went to lunch with Lee McDerment and Stephen Cope. I had spoken to a couple of people about Stephen and had heard a lot of good things about him. I, also, had spoken to him on the phone a couple of times and was looking forward to seeing what God was doing in his life. It was a great lunch and both, Lee and I, felt that we need to interview Stephen for the worship leader position

Over the next 2 months, I have been able to meet with him on numerous occasions, seen him lead worship, had dinner with him and Cindy (his wife), and put him before the fire squad by getting belted with questions from some of the all star staff members of NewSpring Church. It has been through this time that I have found that Stephen is the real deal. Stephen loves Jesus, his family, and the local church.

So I am stoked to say that Stephen accepted the call to be Columbia Campus Worship Leader. I am looking forward to him being a part of the team that will make the name of Jesus famous in Columbia. He will do a GREAT job and be a key part of us being able to reach thousands in Columbia.

Here is a just a little bit of information for you to know about him…

He has been married to Cindy for 3 years
He has an adorable little girl, Natalie, who is a little over 3 months old…she has the best hair ever
He loves to eat at great restaurants: Bellacinos, Soby’s on the Side, Sassasfras, McAlister’s Deli, and the best place of all…Bucky’s BBQ
He is a Green Bay Packers Fan…not sure about that one
He is a Apple Macbook junkie
He just saw Footloose for the first time about 10 months ago

This is what he has to say about being a part of the Columbia Campus:

yes, i have a new job. and for me, the phrase “dream job” would be an understatement. i guess i’ll just go ahead and say it…

i’m going to be the new worship leader for newspring church at their columbia campus…

its still surreal for me to say, so i’ll probably be posting more in the coming weeks to months as we get going, but for now, i’m just soaking in the fact that i get the privilege to work in such and unbelievable organization.

You can read the rest of his post over on his blog.

Here is a link to see him lead worship at NewSpring a couple of weeks ago. Take a moment to check out his twitter page and his blog to see what God has been doing in his life.

Welcome Stephen, glad to have you on board!!!

Easter

Alden — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 19:03:20 +0000

I have always LOVED Easter! I will be honest that I have never fully liked the whole “Early Sunrise Service”, but I know that a lot of people enjoy it. Anyways, I digress! I hope that all of you had a GREAT Easter becuase I will be honest and say that this Easter at NewSpring Church was AWESOME. I got to experience the service from our Greenville Campus and I LOVED it! I basically knew what was coming and was still blown away. Here are some quick “hits” from the day:

Total NewSpring Church Attendance: 15,473
Each campus hit a record!
Greenville Campus had 3183…that is our first time over 3,000 and we are still not a year old!
Florence has 455…Florence is only a couple of months old!
Our web campus had 813 participate in worship….ONLINE!! CRAZY!!
We saw 324 salvations over the weekend! SERIOUSLY??
I got to see a gentleman who attended the Greenville Campus accept Christ….here is the awesome part…he had never attended church before Easter and his first question after accepting Christ was, “Where is the best place to start reading in the Bible?” WOW!!
Also we opened our service with “Highway to Hell.” Justin Land was NAILS, so here is the clip from the Greenville Campus:

HIGHWAY2HELL_JUSTIN from Jiggle Snort on Vimeo.

Would you be able to forgive??

Alden — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:34:21 +0000

Would you be able to forgive like this woman? Thought this was powerful!!

Who is to blame for the economy?

Alden — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:08:01 +0000

I was reading an article in Time Magazine titled, 25 People to Blame for the Financial Crisis and some of it struck me. Here are some of the names that were listed as to be at fault:

Alan Greenspan, Former Federal Reserve Chairman
Bill Clinton, 42nd President of the USA
Frank Raines, Former CEO of Fannie Mac
George W Bush, 43rd President of the USA
Angelo Mozilo, Co-Founder of Countrywide Mortgage

Some of the names were familiar and some were not, but #4 on the list is the one that struck me the most. #4 on the list is no other than the American Consumer…that would be ALL of us. There are probably a lot of thoughts on this one, but I personally think that the American Consumer should take the #1 spot!

Americans have a bad habit of buying on credit and not with the money they have in the possession. Some people say the banks are to blame, but I would contend that it is not the banks job to make sure that there is money in everyone’s account. Yes, our economy is screwed up, so who do you think is to blame??

To close, here are some quotes that I recently heard that struck me and are timely…

Peter Peterson had this to say in The New York Times in May, 1982:

Tomorrow’s needs are getting short shrift because the Great American Majority – the broad Middle Class – is choosing to consume rather than save for tomorrow.

Paul Hoffman, President of Studebakers Inc., said in January, 1947

…we have had 26 depressions in the last 200 years…because in periods of boom we have never so conducted ourselves as to prevent the cause of the ensuing bust.

H.E. Martz said in The Wall Street Journal in February, 1963:

Prosperity is when people buy things they can’t afford and recession is when they stop doing it.