i love this pic of christmas eve @ newpointe

Hope you got to be there. It was a great night. Thanks again to the hundreds of incredible volunteers at all three NewPointe campuses who made it all happen!

merry christmas

Happy Holidays from DANIELS on Vimeo.

sunday’s scuds (december 19, 2010)

Sunday brought us part three of the series, Christmas By the Numbers. In this series, we’ve been breaking down the most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16. Each week we’ve taken a look at a key word in this verse: For God so LOVED the world that he GAVE his one and only Son that whoever BELIEVES in him shall not perish but HAVE eternal life. 

This week, Dwight talked about what it means to BELIEVE. Here are the scuds:

• God is not ticked off at you. He loves you.
• You don’t need to know whether or not Adam had a belly button. What you need to know is that God loves you!
• If you’re going to make the right decision, you have to have the right information.
• Sometimes preachers make Christianity more complicated than it needs to be.
• Being a Christian is not about attending church.
• You don’t become a Christian by praying a prayer.
• You don’t become a Christian by committing your life to God.
• So how do you become a Christian?

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Romans 10:9

• Everybody spends forever somewhere.
• You can’t act in a way that’s inconsistent with how you think (or what you believe).

top 10 reasons santa does not attend newpointe

Each year brings a fun, new Service Programming/First Impressions Christmas party. And each party brings a new David Letterman-style top 10 list. Last year’s list was: The top ten things you’ll never hear at NewPointe.

This year’s list: The top ten reasons Santa does not attend NewPointe. Are you ready? Here we go…

10. There are no chimneys at any of the campuses.

9. No designated sleigh parking (he’d have to park in the south lot and walk way too far)

8. Unhappy about Dave D not hearing the jingle bell anymore

7. He doesn’t own any jeans.

6. He’s holding out for a North Pole campus

5. Says Reign Forest is too tropical for his taste.

4. Keeps getting stuck in the tubes in the playland.

3. Takes too long to check in all those elves into Velocity.

2. Somehow always ends up sitting behind “cowboy hat guy” and can see a thing.

1. Dwight Mason’s actually on the Naughty List!

newpointe outtakes

We do a lot of video at NewPointe. And doing a lot of video means that we capture some things that are not intended to be made public. You know them as bloopers. So…we put together a little blooper montage for last Saturday’s First Impressions/Service Programming Christmas party. Here it is. Enjoy!

sunday's scuds (december 5, 2010)

Christmas By the Numbers. That’s the name of the new series we started at NewPointe last Sunday. Sometimes Christmas seems like more of a math equation than the blessed time it was intended to be. So this Christmas season, we’re focusing on the most important numbers of Christmas: 3:16—as in John 3:16.

For God so LOVED the world that he GAVE his one and only son that whoever BELIEVES in him shall not perish but HAVE eternal life.

Dave D’Angelo started things off Sunday with a fantastic message about God’s love for us. Here are some of the scuds he fired:

• Everyone battles the “what ifs.”
• “What ifs” are real and personal to us.
• “What ifs” tend to paralyze us.
• Our “what ifs” don’t seem all that dramatic to others.
• “What ifs” shouldn’t (and don’t have to) dominate our lives.
• “What ifs” are insecurities based on fear.

There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear. 1 John 4:18

• Perfect love is what Christmas is all about.
• “Why not?” is a much better question to ask than, “What if?”
• Why not take a step?
• No step of trust in God ever goes unloved or unnoticed by God.
• Why not drop the conditions when it comes to your relationship with God?
• Why not admit your areas of need?
• Why not do whatever it takes to restore relationships in your life?
• Self-sufficiency is the most unlovable place to be in life.

saying goodbye to our dog, casey

It’s taken me a month to post this—I just haven’t made it a priority—perhaps subconsciously because it was a really difficult day for our family. About a month ago we had to say goodbye to our family pet, Casey, a 5 year-old Bichon.

Casey developed bladder stones—repeatedly. She had them stuck in her urethra, and she had one the size of a large grape in her bladder. She also developed a terrible infection, and just one thing after another to the point where the vet wasn’t even sure Casey would survive surgery (she’d already had surgery for a similar condition 18 months ago). So we had to make a really hard choice that day. We had to say goodbye to Casey—and we had to make the decision quickly, for her sake, because she was in so much pain.

And just let me say this about Casey: she was the best dog in the world. You may think your dog is the best dog in the world and, well, that may be true—now that Casey’s gone. She really was the best. And we miss her terribly.

On the day we said goodbye, Jenny and I talked about what to do with the kids. It was a Friday and they were in school. Do we get them out of school and take them to the vet to say goodbye? Do we just say goodbye to Casey ourselves and tell the kids later? What would be the wise thing to do?

Jenny prayed out loud while we were driving back to Sugarcreek. And somehow, we just knew we needed to go get the kids. So we picked each one of them up from school as we broke the bad news to them.

Tears flowed. We all cried hard. It was hard to even contemplate life without Casey. It was a hard, hard day for our family.

We went to the vet and they brought Casey to us. She was pretty sedated and, of course, kinda out of it. But we got to hold her, love on her, and thank God for her before we said our goodbyes.

Jenny asked the kids to pose for one last picture with Casey. She said, “Smile” (she figured we didn’t want to have a bunch of sad faces in our pictures). Anyway, smiling was hard, obviously. Here’s the pic:

You can see the tears in the girls’ eyes. They managed to smile through them. Andrew, on the other hand, though he tried, couldn’t quite pull off a that smile.

We miss Casey every day. Even looking at this picture as I post it makes my eyes a little watery. She was a great dog.