• May 6 — Perry is going to talk about the future of NewSpring Church. If you thought reaching 7,500 each weekend in Anderson, South Carolina was a big vision, you aren’t going to believe what’s coming next.
• May 13 — We are going to do something we’ve never done before. The story we’re going to share on the 13th will demonstrate the power of God’s ministry through NewSpring and the impact we can have, together, as a church. Someone’s life will be changed forever.
• May 20 — We are going to launch our new series, "Reel Life. Uncut. Uncensored." This first weekend will be both uproariously funny and rock-your-world-upside-down challenging. Throughout this series, we’re going to discover how spiritual issues raised at the movies impact our daily lives. This first week, we’re going to take a unique look at the person of Jesus. Here’s a hint…you’ll find out that some people "think of Jesus as a mischievous badger."

You’ll want to join us for each of these weekends. And, as always, these are great opportunities to invite your friends. Get ready for God to rock your world!

By the way, here’s something simple that we do at NewSpring that you may want to consider. Like most churches, we pass out a program for everyone to take notes. In addition to that, the greeters also have buckets of pens available to pass out at the doors. As people are leaving at the end of the service, the greeters have the buckets to collect the pens. It encourages people to take notes during the message. And, I don’t know if you’re like me or not, but I retain more when I write it down. That’s one of the reasons I enjoy blogging so much. When I write, I learn.

For the immediate future, I’m going to be responsible for leading the communications and technology areas. I’m also going to have the responsibility for helping to launch NewSpring Ministries–that’s our new ministry to help equip church leaders through resources, consulting and events like the upcoming Unleash Conference (btw… I heard we had a bunch of New Yorkers register yesterday. They’re in for a treat.)

There are a couple more exciting new ventures that I’m going to be involved in moving forward, but I’m not allowed to tell you about them. That news will have to wait until early April when Perry shares what’s coming with the rest of the church. Let me just suggest that I think we’ve only begun to see what God might accomplish through NewSpring Church. I’m certainly excited to be a part of this adventure!

In addition to giving you an update on what’s happening through Granger’s ministry to our community, I thought some of you would like to know that we count other stuff besides people who show up for  our weekend services. I know some of you get bent out of shape about the fact that we actually track whether or not our church is reaching more people. With this information about food distribution, maybe you’ll be able to rest easier tonight.

It’s not about the numbers. It’s about impacting people’s lives for Jesus.

• We had almost 6,400 people at the services this weekend. That’s an increase of over 1,900 people from the same weekend last year. What do you do with that? Unbelievable!
• The church is fully engaging in the 20 Days of Giving. That’s been a blast. People are catching the vision that being a Christ-follower is more than just showing up to church on Sunday morning.
• The messages have been intentionally helping people understand how they can experience a revolution in their life that can ultimately help us, together, bring a revolution to our community.

I love the fact that Granger isn’t about helping people become churchy–it’s about helping people experience a transformed life in Christ that challenges folks to live out their faith daily in today’s culture. Frankly, that’s a lot harder than just being churchy. Churchiness is easy. You just follow prescribed rules.

Real faith is dynamic. It’s controversial. It’s dangerous. It’s constantly growing. It asks challenging questions. It involves mystery. You can’t put it in a box. You can’t keep it quiet. You can’t out-grow it. You can’t out-dream it. It’s more focused on others than it is on self. Real faith gives me peace but makes me discontent to let things stay the same.

It’s amazing what God can do through a church that embraces that kind of vision for life together. It’s revolutionary.