newpointe in the middle east video

Here's a great video featuring several NewPointers talking about the church's involvement with missions in the Middle East. Check it out:



Thanks ReelFM!

newpointe named one of america's fastest growing churches

Each year Outreach Magazine publishes a list of the fastest growing churches in America. This year, NewPointe Community Church made the top 100, checking in at #89 of the top 100 fastest-growing. Pretty cool, huh?

Here's a link to a web version of the list: The Outreach 100

Sometimes NewPointe gets bad-mouthed by people who say things like, "All you guys care about are numbers."

First of all, that's just not true. We care about a lot more than simply attracting a large crowd on Sundays. In fact, what matters the most to us is seeing Christ formed in people.

Secondly, we DO care about numbers because numbers represent people—and we care deeply about people. People matter to God and they matter to us.

We believe that it's God's will for churches to grow. We're convinced God wants NewPointe to grow. In fact, if the church isn't growing, it's dying.

So thank you to all of the excellent volunteers and staff who work so hard to make NewPointe a place where people want to come to church. Isn't it great to be a part of something that's growing and thriving?

a barrel of fun

Just ask Todd Colucy. It's fun to cut up credit cards. Above is a plastic barrel full of plastic. Inside this barrel there are literally hundreds of credit cards that my friend Todd has had the privilege of cutting up. Todd leads NewPointe's Financial Peace University program. He's passionate about helping people get out of debt. And a great step to getting out of debt is to quit charging things!

There are a couple of cut-up credit cards at the bottom of that barrel that used to belong to Jenny and I.

You may have heard Dwight say that you can't be a fully devoted follower of Christ and be confused bout your personal finances. When your personal finances are in order, it honors God.

Thanks, Todd, for helping people tackle debt. Thanks for leading the FPU efforts at NPCC. When we have our personal finances in order, it honors God.

You can learn more about FPU at NPCC by clicking here.

"how 'bout the two of you joining us at married life live?"

Someone stopped me at church on Sunday and told me that she and her husband brought some friends to Married Life Live on Saturday. She told me that the couple is currently separated but they agreed to come to MLL. She went on to tell me that the couple had a great time, enjoyed MLL thoroughly and by the end of the evening they were actually "gettin' cozy" with each other. Isn't that cool?

I love the fact that there are people at NewPointe who are investing in others and inviting them to events like Married Life Live. Who knows the ultimate impact the simple question of, "Hey, how 'bout the two of you joining us at Married Life Live...we'll buy your tickets" will have on that couple's relationship?

Stuff like that fires me up!

married life live pics

MLL was AWESOME, baby! Hope you were able to be there!

sneak peek

If you've been wondering what's been going on in what used to be the NewPointe bookstore...here's what's new.

Over the past couple weeks specialists have been in to construct an amazing, totally themed-out jungle play-land!

Here are a few "sneak-peek" pics.

It's an amazing place that now a part of the ReignForest! You'll be able to see the rest of it in the near future.

productive day today

Some days just feel more productive than others. Today felt very productive. Here are the nuts and bolts of how it went:

7:30 a.m.

Breakfast with the guys from GRIP Outreach (Chicago). Nailed down some specifics regarding taking a group from Aqua to Chicago to do some ministry in early November.

8:30 a.m.

Weekly brainstorm refining meeting with Danny. We covered everything from First Wednesday to Married Life Live (which, by the way, is going to be amazing), to this Sunday's services. We wrapped things up by researching music for the One Month To Live series (there are a lot of great songs out there...wish we could use them all).

12:00 p.m.

Lunch with one of our key First Impressions volunteers. We talked strategy and systems. Very helpful. Very productive.

1:30 p.m.

Weekly production meeting with Dwight, Cindy, Danny, and Chad. This is the meeting where we cover all the details of Sunday services, work out transitions, and look at video elements. This week you can look forward to eight baptisms!

2:00 p.m.

Video meeting with Cindy. Cindy Colucy is our video project coordinator. She's excellent at it. But she's kinda freaking out right now because two of our video editors are headed back to college. If you know someone who can help us in this area, let me know!

3:00 p.m.

Married Life Live meeting with Teresa Raber. Teresa is the Group Life coordinator. She's the one who basically covers every detail of MLL. We worked through the whole evening making sure all bases are covered before the MLL production meeting.

4:00 p.m.

Replied to emails, returned phone calls, and sent out weekly ministry update emails to all Service Programming and First Impressions volunteers.

5:18 p.m.

Blogged

5:29 p.m.

Now I'm going to work out before heading home for dinner.

new series

This Sunday we kick of a new series at NewPointe: Prayer Works. Here's the skinny:

What kind of stuff ends up in a box headed for a garage sale? The stuff that doesn’t work for us anymore – right? It didn’t work, we couldn’t get it to work, or we simply lost patience and quit trying to see if it would work.

Have we placed prayer in this kind of box? If so, we are missing out on something that can transform our life. Prayer isn’t meant to not work. We believe quite the opposite – Prayer Works – especially when we understand how it was designed and how it should work.

Don't miss out on this very important three-week series as we explore the nature of prayer and how it is designed to be a working part of our life.

It just may cause you to cancel your garage sale.

go '08 community impact day

We wrapped up the UnTypical series yesterday by doing something very untypical: we didn't have church. Instead, we sent hundreds and hundreds of people out into our community to serve. NewPointers could be spotted wearing yellow shirts fixing roofs, doing roadside cleanup, landscaping local schools, delivering food to food banks, giving free haircuts to kids, doing construction at campgrounds...you name it. What a great day it was. Let me tell ya...BEING the church beats HAVING church!

Here are a few pics that Paul Rothel took yesterday:

The Bunn family (along with about a dozen others) gave free car washes in Sugarcreek. We figure we were able to bless about 40 people/families with free washes. It was fun to see people's reactions, "Really? Totally free? Really?"

It was a blast to see my family serving with my church family all day long. What a GREAT day. What a blessing to be able to be a part of it all.

family food drive highlights

The Go '08 Food Drive started for the Bunn family on Wednesday of this week. With ball games, camps, lessons, and (you-name-it) we were a little slow in getting things cranked into gear this year.

So on Wednesday evening I ventured out with the three crazies as we knocked on doors and handed out fliers to 30+ of our neighbors. The way we do it is, we make a flier that explains the food drive. The kids are responsible for knocking on doors, and explaining as much as they can while leaving a flier. And then they tell them we'll be back later in the week to collect the food that they just leave by their front doors.

Yesterday we hit Aldi to fill three boxes of food. And today was neighborhood collection day.

And today was neighborhood food collection day. Jenny drove the van around the neighborhood with the hatch open and the flashers flashing while the kids and I visited everyone's front porches to see if they'd left food out.

The result? 15 boxes of food from our neighborhood!

Here's why I love the NewPointe food drive:

1. Our whole family can get involved.
2. We're able to teach our kids about giving to those who are in need.
3. The kids take the initiative. It builds their confidence AND their faith.
4. We're able to help feed a whole bunch of people who could really use some help right now.

josh wilson pics

Sunday was an amazingly great day at NewPointe. We continued the UnTypical series by looking at what we can learn about untypical courage from Benaiah...but not before Josh Wilson took the stage to do some of his music (including the 3 Minute Song). He's amazing.

Here's a pic I took of him during the pre-service run-through:

After the services we headed to our favorite place to hang out with Christian recording artists like Josh Wilson and Worth Dying For...Daryl and Lee Ann Miller's. Per usual, Lee Ann put out a ridiculous spread. Here's Josh enjoying some of Teddy's famous nachos.

And this is becoming a tradition: Guitar Hero with our guest artists. Here's Josh checking out Natalie vs. Joey.

And here's Josh whoopin' on Big Dan (this, of course, will prompt Dan to leave a comment on my blog)

Later in the day we had an awesome tailgate party (before Josh's concert). And Josh jumped right in, mixing it up with everyone who came. Here's Josh playing catch with the Monkey Boy:

And the highlight of Natalie's day may have been getting to play "pickle" with Josh.

The concert was off-the-hook. Amazing. Afterwards Josh stuck around to meet everyone and sign autographs. He's just a great guy.

And after all that...we headed back to the parking lot for more tailgating...wings, ribs, you name it. Dwight indulged...

As did Josh...and Danny...and Dan...and...

Great day. Great fun. Great ministry. I love NewPointe.

gettting to know the lions

This Sunday I'm going to be sharing about a guy in the Bible named Benaiah. Here's the skinny on him: he chased a lion into a pit on a snowy day and killed it.

In my never-ending quest for knowledge and well-roundedness, I thought it would be good if I learned as much as I could about lions. So...I visited the Akron Zoo and sat down with the zoo's education manager, Patty Villers, to see what I could learn.

Here's the interview.



Oh yes, there'll be more on Sunday. See you there!

zoo visit

Jeff Conn and I visted the Akron Zoo on Wednesday...with a video camera...specifically to see the lions. Why?


You'll have to come to church on Sunday, July 20 to find out.

P.S. was it wrong for me to ask the lion keeper, "What kind of operation are you running here? This place is like a zoo!"

untypical

Sunday we kick off a new series at NewPointe: UnTypical. Honestly, I'm as excited about this series as I have been for any series we've ever done. I think what excites me the most is the idea of you and me living lives that are anything but typical. God doesn't call us to live typical lives. He calls us to the extraordinary.

It's interesting to me that so many people think that if you "become a Christian" that you're automatically forfeiting fun and and excitement, trading them in for the dull and lifeless. I've found just the opposite to be true. So over the next 30 days we're going to explore the idea of living an untypical life--the REAL Christian life. Untypical courage, untypical faith, untypical ambition, untypical generosity.

This Sunday we're going to discover an amazing dimension to living the Christian life--an untypical dimension. In this untypical dimension, he who would be first will be last. He who would be last will be first. In this untypical dimension God’s power is perfected in weakness…and real life, really living, comes through dying. How's that for untypical?

Don't forget, the Go '08 food drive starts this Sunday. You can start brining in non-perishables now!

Oh, one more thing... Don't be late to church. I'm not kidding. If you miss the opener this week...well, just don't be late!

See you Sunday!

seven in six

Sunday Dwight shared seven things to pray about over the next six months:

1. The GO '08 food drive (July). Our goal is to fill 1, 500 boxes of food for our local food pantries.
2. Service Sunday (August 3). We'll shut down "church" and go out into our communities to BE the church by serving people.
3. Sports Ministry. Looking to launch this new foyer environment this Fall.
4. Small Groups push. We're doing a special groups-geared message series in September. Our goal...everybody at NewPointe in a small group for the duration of the six-week series.
5. Stewardship Campaign...we're already thinking about expansion and future ministry opportunities. Stewardship campaign begins in November.
6. Satellite Churches. We're exploring the possibilities of launching two satellite churches (Sugarcreek and Canton?) within the next six months.
7. Mission trips. Next month we're sending another team to Egypt. Our work overseas will continue throughout the year (and coming years).

untypical

I know it's going to be difficult to follow the What Lies Beneath series. We spent an awesome six weeks learning what it takes to be emotionally healthy so we can live spiritually healthy lives. What a great, much-needed series.

So what's next? On July 6 NewPointe begins a new summer series: UnTypical (I know that untypical is not really a word...but it works. It's, well, untypical).

I gotta tell ya. I'm pumped. It's going to be an incredible, challenging, thought-provoking series. It's designed to shake us all from living typical lives--into an adventurous, ambitious, dangerous, and Spirit-led UNtypical life.

NewPointe's weekend design team has been working on this one for weeks. And believe me, you will not want to miss a single one in the series (and I'm not just saying that).

Here's the lineup:

• July 6: an Untypical Encounter
• July 13: Untypical Faith
• July 20: Untypical Courage
• July 27: Untypical Ambition

Whatever you do...make sure you're not running late for any of these services. Amazing stuff is going to happen early...and I don't want you to miss what everyone's going to be talking about.

worth dying for

It's official. WORTH DYING FOR will be doing the music and leading worship at NewPointe on June 29. How cool is that? Worth Dying For will be playing at the Alive Festival this week. If you're going, make sure you check them out. Want to know more about them? Here are a few quotes from the band's lead singer:

“Jesus Christ and music are the two things that consume the thoughts and lives of this band,” says 21-year-old Sean Loche, lead singer of Worth Dying For. “Combine the two, and you get what we love to do: worship. We are ordinary people that have a desire to show others how to fall in love with God in a deeper, more passionate way. The music scene today is heavily impacting our youth culture. The music that God has used us to write has changed our youth ministry and our city. Now, God has put it on our hearts to let these songs resonate in the hearts of the young people across this nation.”

“Our dream is to see lives changed,” Sean continues, “to ignite and empower them to go out and do big things… It’s not just about us playing songs, it’s about helping them connect, letting a revolution begin with them….”

“Our message is: The revolution is you… one person standing up for Christ,” Sean continues. “We have a different sense of Christianity than some do. We talk about duty, the forces of darkness and spiritual warfare, and we try to empower our kids, not to sit back but to engage, to stand up and realize that when they do that, they are empowered by the king of kings to fight the darkness. With Jesus on their side, nothing can stand against them…”

SUNDAY, JUNE 29 in both services. Don't miss it!

first wednesday

God is really at work in people’s lives big-time at NewPointe right now. If you were unable to make it to First Wednesday last night, let me give you a quick update:

We had a tremendous time of worship and prayer. Our prayer team was able to pray for/with dozens and dozens of people as they came forward at the end to receive healing, to pray for hurts, to deal with sin issues…it was an incredible time. And that's not all: At least 20 people raised their hands saying, “I’m ready to receive Christ. I want to make him the leader of my life and the forgiver of my sins.” How cool is that? More than 20 people are now members of the family of God because they were courageous enough to raise their hands and pray the sinner’s prayer last night.

Hope you got to be in on that. It was a night I won't soon forget.

you have GOT to be at first wednesday!

I'm sitting at Wall House Coffee right now, shoring up what I'm going to be sharing at First Wednesday tomorrow. And man, it's really speaking to me.

The WHAT LIES BENEATH series has imacted so many people in profound ways. It's uncovering hurts and habit patterns that people are starting to really deal with in their lives. At First Wednesday we're going to look at the story of the man who'd been an invalid for 38 years (John 5). 38 years! And then he encountered Jesus.

I believe that tomorrow at First Wednesday, there's going to be a Jesus-encounter. I believe with all my heart that God wants to set people free from their addictions, lifestyles, and habits. None of it is too big for God.

I hope to see you there. 7 p.m. in the main auditorium.

suhad in the canton rep

In case you didn't see it, here's a link to an article in the Canton Repository about Suhad (the lady NewPointe brought to the U.S. from Baghdad for special surgery).

click here: Beyond Prayer

It appeared in Saturday's Faith and Values section. If you missed the Sunday we introduced her, or you're not familiar with her story, read the article. Very cool stuff.