NewThing field trip January 8-10-09

Thursday night around 8:30pm Kyle Mielke, Dalan Zartman and my sweetheart Melissa and I piled into the Mielke van and headed for Chicago. Arriving at 2:30am our time at Kyle's sister and brother-in-laws, it was nice to set the clock back an hour to get a little more sleep:-)
Why make a through the night trip like this? Well, way back in April 2008 Melissa & I went to Exponential '08, the largest church planting conference in the country. There we met and sat under the teaching of these crazy guys from the NewThing Network. They're ravinous about planting churches in all sorts of creative ways. What can I say, we were inspired and excited about what we heard. Then we traded a few e-mails back and forth and set up a meeting in August '08 where Chuck Taylor and I visited Chicago to ask some questions and see the "Big Yellow Box" and those who worked there. That was informative as well. Next we had a conference call with NewThing guys Jon Ferguson and Brian Zehr, in November '08 where Kyle, Dalan and I asked, and were asked, more questions to see if our ministry passions aligned closely enough to consider partnering together. During that call they suggested that we all come to Chicago in January '09 for their Leadership Community. That's their once a month combined coach, leader and apprentice leader meeting.

This morning we attended it and were impressed. Imagine approx. 500 leaders excited about the same vision, worshipping Christ, cheering for each others successes, and laughing together. These leaders came from the nine satellite churches tied to Community Christian Church in Naperville, Ill. in the West Chicagoland area. Even though it had snowed 4-5 inches the night before, these people made it a priority to be there.

Dave Ferguson, the lead pastor for this movement of churches, cast vision into the lives of the leaders this morning calling them to the next level of their walk with Christ. Inspiring stuff.

ENCOUNTER CHURCH looks forward to partnering with the NewThing Network as we Seek HIS Kingdom First.

Here's a few pics of our time there. The guy with the beard is Brian Zehr, one of the campus pastors who gifted us his entire Friday so we could bombard him with lots of Q's. Thanks Brian:-)

Onsite at Eli Pinney!

Well today has been anticipated for months and months: the team finally being at the elementary school before we start services February 1st. We need the month of January to get used to the building, figuring out where everything will go and practicing set-up and tear-down. We'll also do some Sunday school teacher training and I want the opportunity to cast vision into their lives one more time before we go live.
Today was different though. Today we stopped the business of meetings and agendas and took the whole morning to remember what our awesome Lord did for us. We celebrated with a trifold communion. That is the Bread and Cup (I Corinthians 11:23-32), Footwashing (John 13:1-17), and a Meal or Love Feast (I Corinthians 11:17-22). It takes more time than what many other churches tend to do when celebrating the Lord's Supper, but it allows us to get a real life sense of what our Lord did during that last meal with His disciples. We plan on having this trifold communion eight times a year. Four in our small groups and four on a Sunday morning either as the service or immediately following the service.
CLICK HERE to view an album of this mornings celebration.

New Years Eve Day @ the Creation Museum

Our family was invited by the Mielke family four years ago to see the almost completed Creation Museum in Petersburg, Kentucky. It was/is the dream of Ken Ham, who was one one my guest lecturers 20 years ago in Bible college, to have a state of the art museum dedicated to teaching Biblical truth about the world and how life began. It took more than $27 million and has hundreds of volunteers and paid staff members. We were so impressed by it that we became charter members. That allows our family of six to visit anytime over a five year period of time and also provide up to four individuals a free pass in anytime over the same five years. If you're reading this blog and want to see the place for yourself, give me a call. It's just under two hours from Dublin, OH.

Here are some fun pics. from our visit. They had a live nativity outside where it was 27 degrees Fahrenheit. That's why you see me standing beside the fire with a shepherd. And no, that's not MY purse!I was simply holding for my wiffy.

Last Sunday Service at Grace Church

Yesterday was not only the final Sunday of 2008, it was also the last time I'll likely attend a service at Grace Church. That is unless they have me come as a guest speaker:-) The entire service was dedicated to people testifying about the goodness of God. I also was given the opportunity to share about our next steps and introduced those from the launch team who were in attendance. I hope to add a video clip from the morning once they send it to me.
I will always cherish the years I spent learning the ropes of ministry from my friend, mentor and boss Rick Nuzum. I am so grateful for the time he spent pouring his godly life and advice into mine.
Of course there are many others that have also influenced my life over the last ten years. The Elders and other pastors of Grace Church, friends who partnered in leading ministires like Neighborhood Bible Clubs and the family campout in the summer; Sunday School, UPSTREET LIVE, and AWANA throughout the school year; and of course my wife Melissa who always ends up having the greatest influence on me. And why not, she is my best friend!
Next Sunday, January 4, 2009 our launch team will celebrate by having communion together as we meet for the first time in our rental facility Eli Pinney Elementary. I'll be excited to share about that next week.

1st Ever for the Spoelstra's

It's Saturday night December 27th and we've just gotten home from a fun night of card playing and supper with some great friends.

This Christmas vacation is different than any other we've experienced in 10 years b/c their have been no family from afar staying at our home and we didn't go out of town.

Don't get me wrong, we love to have guests in our home and usually do, but with all the transitions this year has brought and will continue to bring, dedicated family time has been awesome!

Our kids got a Nintendo Wii for Christmas. I have been resistent to having a gaming system in the house for years until my son carefully appealed to me to pray about it six months ago. It's a large ticket item for the Spoelstra household so we told our children to pool their allowances. Six months later and with a financial gift to each child from great-grandma they are now the very, very happy owners of a Wii as you can see in the picture below:-)