Let's Eat !

Our next team lunch is this Sunday, March 1st. We're going to meet in the brown house again at 12:30 and enjoy a Potato Bar! These are great times to get togther, eat, talk and just hang out with others on our ministry team. Please find time to come by! Please let me know if you'll be there and we'll let you know what you can bring.

Making an Impact

Our church puts a lot of value on our Holiday Services. Instead of putting effort into a pre-Christmas "pagaent" or a pre-Easter celebration as some churches do, our leadership has found that the greatest impact for reaching people with the gospel of Jesus Christ is to focus on the "day" itself (i.e. Christmas Eve, and Easter Morning). The people who show up to pre-holiday "events" tend to be those who are already involved in the church. On the other hand, a lot of people who may not go to church will come on the actual holidays. The number of people who attend NWH weekly services during the school year is usually in the 470 to 570 range. Compare that to Christmas Eve services, which had attendance of 740 and 853 for the last two years (respectively), and Easter, which had 986 in '06, and 1080 in '07. As many of you know, we tend to put a lot of effort into Christmas Eve and Easter Morning services, and this is why. We consider this a "built-in" evangelistic opportunity. We try to put together a service that allows believers to celebrate the greatness of those days, while also delivering a clear gospel message. My reason for sharing this is to let you know that the sacrifices you've made for those services (time and effort) is well worth it. Also, I hope that you will catch the vision that leadership has for the opportunities created by those holiday services. Have you been involved in any of the holiday services? I know many (most) of you have, and I hope you have noticed the number of people - regular attenders and visitors - who have attended those services and been blessed. I hope some people have told you just how much they appreciate it. Many have told me, so I'll just pass that along to you now: you are appreciated! We may never know how many lives have been impacted directly, but be confident that your commitment to giving your best has helped the message of hope in Jesus Christ be communicated.

I'm looking forward to serving with many of you again at Easter. Our goal this year is to approach the services much like our last Christmas Eve service, with a combination of music, singing, and concise messages conveying the life-change that God offers through His son. Please add Easter to your list of things to be praying about. Consider if-and-how you'd like to be involved with your time and talents this year to make Easter an offering of our best, for His glory.

Mark your Calendars

Coming up! Plan to be part of these opportunities... they're a great way to get closer to your church family and to get motivated to become even more involved in our church vision.

Baptism Service, Feb 22, 4:30pm at the Osborn Aquatic Center
Have you been baptized? Know anyone who wants to be? There's an opportunity coming up on February 22 at the Aquatic Center. 4:30pm. Plan to come and be a part of this service, even if you're not being baptized.

ONE meeting, Mar 8, 6pm
The format for these meetings has changed to include an extended time of prayer for each other and for the various ministries at NWH. If you didn't make it to the last meeting, come and find out how great this time is. It's an opportunity for our ministry team to get to know the needs within the church and stay up-to-date with various other ministry work being done.

Congregational Meeting, Mar 15, 6pm
Another opportunity to stay in touch with church plans and proposals. You'll get more of the "business-side" of NWH updates at this meeting... a great followup to the ONE meeting the previous week.

Powerful and Effective...

We've been praying specifically for some people in our ministry and I wanted to post these links where you can get some updates. It's awesome to see how God's been answering prayer. Let me know if you have any additional updates to add to these.
Click here to get caught up on Jessi Furlo's condition.
Click here to get caught up on the birth of Houston Young

The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. James 5:16