Most of you that read AldenEllis.com know that I was born and raised in Florence, SC. It is also the place that I began serving in full-time pastoral ministry. I served at First Baptist Church of Florence, my home church, for two and half years as the Minister of Students. I have many close friendships and fond memories of Florence. It is the place where my mom and dad, my dad’s side of the family (multitude of aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.) still reside.

With that said, NewSpring Church will open its THIRD campus in Florence, SC this fall. Perry announced this from stage today at our Easter Services, which you will definitely need to watch!! Over a year and half ago, he told the congregation that he felt the Lord was leading NewSpring to have a campus in every major city in South Carolina. Well, Florence is going to be the first of many other campuses across South Carolina!

I moved from Florence to begin serving at NewSpring Church back in August of 2005, since that time I have always thought that Florence would be a GREAT place for a campus of NewSpring Church. I truly believe that the community of Florence will be greatly blessed by this campus. I know so many people that are far from the Lord in Florence and this campus of NewSpring will be a great tool to get them connected!

Please be praying for the leadership of NewSpring as plans are being made and finalized. You can rest assured that as soon as the plans are able to be announced you will see them here on AldenEllis.com. If you are interested in connecting with this exciting news, please contact me through the contact page and I will send your information over to the Campus Pastor of the Florence Campus, Micheal Brown!

You can also check out more information about the excitement from Tony Morgan, by clicking here!

Get ready Florence…it is going to be an awesome and amazing ride!!!

Needless to say, I am very excited about the construction that is getting ready to happen on the grounds of NewSpring Church. Back in October, we launched a capital campaign called GAMETIME.

Here are two pictures of the outline of the buildings that will be built on our Anderson Campus. Thanks to Sherry Moorhead for the first and Will Rodes for the second!

Click on the picture for a closer look.

It is so excited to think how God has blessed us to be able to do this MASSIVE project as people come together and “forcefully advance the kingdom.” As Perry said on Sunday, “So many people stepped up and said, ‘You are not doing this by yourself Pastor P,’ We are coming together to handle this…”

It is going to be awesome to see how God uses these buildings to reach the children, students, and families of the Anderson area!! Be sure to check out the Gametime Blog for further updates on the progress of the Anderson Campus and on all the other things we will be doing (Greenville Campus, foreign missions, and local missions)!

Mark 12:30-31, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

“The true leader serves. Serves people. Serves their best interests, and in doing so will not always be popular, may not always impress. But because true leaders are motivated by loving concern rather than a desire for personal glory, they are willing to pay the price.” Euguene B. Habecker

These are the two things that I shared with our leaders Sunday night in our IGNITE Staff Meeting. I casted some vision to let them know that we are about to get in over our heads in ministry. We are expecting close to 200 students next week at IGNITE with the rising 6th Graders attending for the first time. We are taking 80 of them with us on an event this week called the UPRISING.

With that in mind, I challenged them to be on the look out for GREAT leaders. Those people who will be leaders in the truest sense of the word…a servant. A person who will come to IGNITE and a have a desire to serve the students in their small group and will be willing to do it when they do not get all the praise in the world. A leader who is motivated out of a desire to serve Jesus through serving our students. A leader who understands that it is worth the price to serve these students. A leader who is willing to listen to the sad stories, broken hearted laments, wipe away the tears, listen intently to what they are saying, and do their best to relate to them.

As a leader it takes time, energy, effort, preparation (spiritual, emotional, mental), and love. As a leader this is the price we pay to work with our students. Please know…IT IS WORTH THE PRICE WE PAY! The rewards and benefits are through the roof. When a student accepts Christ…it is worth the price we pay. When a student grows in their faith…it is worth the price we pay. When the light-bulb comes on after multiple conversations… it is worth the price we pay. When they tell their friends about Christ…it is worth the price we pay.

Come join us if you would like to see an infinite return on your investment into the lives of students! Contact us here is you are a member of NewSpring and want to be part of something amazing!

IGNITE went really well lasy night! I was looking forward to last night in an unusual expectant sort of way. Yesterday was a busy day…we held our final Parent Meeting before our summer youth camp, The GAUNTLET. I left there and went directly to the 2Seven to prepare for IGNITE.

Band has some minor issues to overcome, but nothing major. I was impressed with the way Daniel Harper, our Student Ministry Worship leader, handled the adversity before the service. He was very calm and took it all in stride. Daniel, you did a great job tonight with handling and leading the band through that adversity. Keep up the great work! I look forward to all the many services we will have to work together in to prepare.

We did a decent job added some additional elements of a new game and a different way to do announcements.

The message was decent in length. We concluded our NEXT series, discussing the vision by ending with ENDURE and ENABLE. My main point was that “We all need each other to: live, survive, and thrive.” I discussed this from 1 Corinthians 12. Also used the statement: “You were created on purpose, with a purpose, and for a purpose.” The thesis of the message was that we need each other as a part of the body of Christ. Each part of the body has a specific role (a.k.a talent, passion, gifting) and we must use that for the body to function properly. When we do that is it beautiful and we can do so much more through Christ than we could ever imagine. To close, I used the illustration of me and my calling. I displayed my ability (or inability) to play the drums…then our drummer, Ryan Siders, came out and looked at me like I was crazy. Of course, the students were begging him to play and well…he is a whole lot better than me. I then picked up the guitar…tried to play and I told Ryan to follow my lead while I played and it was bad. Then Daniel came out and took over the guitar. They played together and is sounded awesome. I then closed by saying that if we stay in our giftedness, then we can do some awesome things for Jesus.

So…overall I thought that the night went really well. Something to improve on and continue to build.