My soul is full from the gatherings at New Life this weekend. Rarely does a Sunday not provide amazing stories of people being changed by God, but this past Sunday was really special for many reasons.
1. During the song set, Jon Egan shared the story from scripture of Mary anointing Jesus with a vial of expensive perfume as an act of extravagant worship. He said we had a choice to either enjoy the aroma of someone else’s worship or we could pour out our own perfume. Worship should cost us something. It was a strong reminder that God wants all of our worship and all of our hearts, at all times.
2. Later, Pastor Aaron read from Colossians 1 about Christ being formed in us. He reminded us that the Gospel is not about going from bad to good, but from dead to alive.
3. I spoke on the two baptisms in Luke 3. Water baptism requires us to obey and humble ourselves which allows for the old person to be cut off and for us to enter the destiny that God has for us. The second baptism is simply welcoming the work of the Holy Spirit into our lives and receiving it as a free gift from the Father delivered to us by Jesus.
4. After the 11am gathering, I prayed for a young couple trying to save their marriage, another young couple who had been hurt by a former church and were trying to trust church leadership again, and a middle aged man who cried as he told me that he finally understood the baptism of the Holy Spirit after years of frustration.
5. 53 new families came to Guest Central looking for more info about being a part of New Life. There were some great conversations, lots of prayer and some discussion with yet another young couple who wanted to find out about pre-marriage mentoring.
6. 11 kids accepted Christ in the 5th and 6th grade class alone on Sunday and over 80 in the same class prayed for more of the Holy Spirit in their lives.
7. On Sunday night, we baptized over 140 people, most of them brand new believers, including 54 children. Entire families were baptized together. A man who was homeless a month ago was baptized.
God is the one who provides wind for our sails and moves us with momentum from heaven. It is not a result of incessant hype. Momentum is more than just growing crowds or full parking lots. Momentum comes from people deciding to follow Jesus and being healed of emotional and physical pain. It happens when orphans from Colorado and around the world are being set into forever families. It is a result of widows from our church and city being cared for every week.
The church that Jesus birthed 2000 years ago in Jerusalem is still resilient and fully alive all across the earth. New Life is becoming more and more a reflection of those ancient, yet still powerful ideals. My soul is full.