red, white, and blue...something old and something new

Hey New Hopers,

Happy 4th of July!! It's impossible for me to think about this day without remembering the awesome times we had as a church at our old property.  For three years we ran a community outreach event: we handed out sno-cones and water to our neighbors who parked up and down our street to see the Peoria Sports Park fireworks show, we BBQ'd like nobody's business, and of course...we had the BAND.  For three years our worship team, led by the nearly mythical Matt Beem, played a super fun set of rousing (and often racous) rock and roll.  I will remember those awesome 4th of Julys for the rest of my life.

This year of course is quite a bit different.  We sold our property in December of last year and for 6 months we've been a mobile church meeting in a school.  One of the things I miss most about not having our old property will be our 4th of July celebrations.  I think they were our church at it's best.  It is hard to say goodbye to old traditions...especially ones we remember so fondly.  From the bottom of my heart I would like to thank the folks of New Hope for those great celebrations. You blessed me and our community.

It would be tempting to be nothing but saddened by the loss of such a great tradition.  But I think that would be the wrong posture to take.  Why?  Because I think, while we must leave some traditions behind, we have in front of us a whole new future to build new traditions.  Our community stands at the starting line of a great new adventure.  Who will we be in this season of our church?  What new events and traditions will we build together?  How will we think, using the limitless creativity of the Holy Spirit, about new ways to bless our new neighbors?  I don't have all the answers to these questions...but I am confident in our future.  Confident in the new memories and traditions we will forge together during this new season of our community...but more than that....simply just confident in our church.  I have seen your love for each other and for the community around us and I KNOW that as this new adventure begins to form itself in front of us we will make every opportunity to build exciting and lasting memories and traditions together.

So a blessing to you all on this 4th of July.  As Tom Petty said in "Into the Great Wide Open"....the future is wide open!!

Blessings In Christ,

Pastor Jason

Freedom!

Galatians 5.22-23
 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

Recently ran into an old friend who has become part of a Christian-sect that is demanding adherence to the Old Testament Torah (the Law) as a requirement for those who would be "truly Christian".  It was very painful for me to see this friend decend into the never satisfying abyss that is "striving to impress God".  This age old temptation to "prove" ourselves before God rears its head from time to time in the church...and every time it damages people and hurts the cause of Christ.  I was instantly reminded though, of these amazing words from the apostle Paul (who had every reason to think that if anyone could impress God by their behavior it would be him).  Paul corrects any notion that any of us brings anything of worth before God before, or during our salvation.  Paul knew that no code, no law, no set of performance based "have to's" matters for squat.  What matters is a faithful dependance on what Christ has accomplished on our behalf on the cross and in the resurrection.  Paul was confident that when we place our faith in Christ, we are sealed with God's Spirit...and that this same spirit was more than able to produce in us the good fruit that marks a true disciple.  Press on my friends into the grace of Jesus Christ.  "There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus".  You were called by his grace, saved by his grace, and are sustained by his grace.  Live free of the fears of measuring up...live free of "the have to's".  Live free in the grace of our Lord who has accomplished EVERYTHING that was required of every human when the one who knew no sin became sin for us!!  Live free!!!

Welcome Gina Pollard!!

Hey all, Pastor Jason here....

I am so excited to announce that today our faith community agreed together to enter into an exciting new venture...that of having a co-pastor leadership model.  I am thrilled to say that we unanimously voted to bring Ms Gina Pollard on as New Hope's (and my) co-pastor.  Co-pastoring is an awesome new modality of leadership that many churches are beginning to recognize the value of: the value of more creativity, more gifting, more collaborative work (I could go on and on!!).  Gina brings a tremendous amount of gifting in a wide variety of areas and I am excited to combine the gifts the Lord has loaned to me with hers!  I truly believe that together Gina and I will be able to provide exemplary leadership and pastoral care to our community.  I am excited for our community, myself, and for what this will enable us to do in our greater community for the sake of the gospel.

So welcome Gina!!!  I look forward to working with you for the glory of God's kingdom!!!


Jason Powell
Co-pastor
New Hope Covenant Church

Well Hellooo out there!
     Jaime here. I've never written for a blog before but when Andrew set this up and asked if I would be interested, well, here I am I suppose! Let me just jump right in...
     This morning was a good one! I met with Brandi for coffee. She's our admin. guru on staff, Women's Ministry leader extraordinaire, Mending the Soul coach...you get the idea. She rocks. As if she wasn't already doing enough, one more important role that she played this summer was that of fearless Kid's Camp cabin leader. For some, this may not seem like any big deal...but let me assure you that these folks that volunteer to go to camp and be in the trenches with the kids are absolute saints!
     Anyway, back to coffee. The purpose of our meeting this morning was to talk over Kid's Camp. I'll be honest with you...when she asked to meet I couldn't help but feel a bit nervous. Not everything was like clockwork this year at camp and I was hoping that it wouldn't be one of those, "it was great James but I'm never doing that again..." type conversations. It most definitely wasn't! In fact (thank you Jesus) she's hooked! There really is nothing quite like going to camp. And for me, there is NOTHING like Kid's Camp! If you have been before, then you know what I mean. If you have never been, then I urge you to go!
     As we sat talking over the weekends events, and laughing over silliness, and tearing up (ok, that was just me) over the victories in each of the kids' lives I was reminded of this blog and that I never got a chance to stop and share anything during camp. Not enough down-time at camp to write the "in the moment" experiences like Andrew (thanks for doing that, by the way!). But I didn't want to get too far from it before sharing a bit about what God did that weekend.
     Our verse for the weekend was 2 Timothy 1:9 - "He has saved us and called us to a holy life - not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time...”. As one might deduce from the verse...the whole weekend was about Grace. We looked at it through one of the most grace-filled stories I know - The Prodigal Son (from Luke 15). I believe that the kids all benefited from hearing that God's Grace is for them and that it's never to late to receive it. More than that, however, I know that our kids each had victories of their own throughout the weekend. Whether it was conquering fears, or learning to have God's grace for one another in real-life ways, or coming out of their shell and learning how getting silly or messy can break down walls...each one took a step forward in their relationships with Jesus in their own way. And THAT...my friends...is what it was all about!
   There are SO MANY things I could say about camp...but I find that often, pictures speak volumes so here are a few from the weekend...

 

This is the worship band that I was blessed to be a part of. (Shout out to Andrew - fellow NH blogger there all the way on the left! And then Andy, Joe, myself and Ed...great group!)

Some of our kids dancing during worship! I can't think of many things that I love more than helping to lead 175 kids in praising the Lord!

One of my favorite memories was Sundaes from Heaven. In a metaphorical sense, this event was to help seal in the kids' mind that all good things come from our Father in Heaven. In a very practical sense...we literally rain down every kind of ice-cream topping you can imagine from the roof and the kids become human Sundaes...oh...and some of it lands on their ice cream. I love it!

Then there was Messy Mania...mud pit + bubble machine = good times!

That's me in the middle (oh hello!), Becky on the left and Brandi on the right. They were amazing cabin leaders hand-picked by God for these kids this year. So thankful for their willing hearts!

And a special (read: personal) thank you to my amazing hubby for coming and hanging with the baby boy all weekend so I could have him close and fulfill my roles at camp!

Our small but mighty New Hope group. What a fantastic weekend with a great group learning about and serving an amazing God!

Until next time...

Jaime

Pastor's first post!

Hey New Hope family,

Pastor Jason here.  I'm so thankful to Andrew Olson for setting up our church blog.  It's great to have people in our community who give of their time and talents in so many ways.  I am looking forward to posting here...but now that means I have to start racking my brains for something intelligent to say!  I'll do my best.  For now I'll just say welcome and God bless you!!

Kids Camp 2013 In Review

So we're all back in the Valley again.  The kids were awesome.  The worship was awesome.  Camp was awesome. 

Overall, I don't have much else to say.  God is great.

Andrew

Kids Camp Day Three & New Writers

The weather is gorgeous up here.  But I'm still sunburned. 

So I ran the zipline for the kids yesterday.  They were all so excited to jump into it.  And the smiles at the end of each run were amazing.  

The evening's event was the best part though: glow in the dark capture-the-flag.  The camp ordered a ton of glow-sticks and we set up the field with little glow-sticks for boundaries, two giant glow-sticks for flags, and necklaces for team markers.  Now it was cool when we started, kids running around all over the place, screaming and having a good time, but it got awesome once the sun went down.  It looked like something out of Tron.  There were just blue and green circles zipping around the field.  I have to say, running that game was a total blast. 

On another note, I've found a few people that are interested in writing for this blog.  I'm excited to announce that New Hope's Tracy, Jaime, and Pastor Jason will be putting out posts soon. 

Anyways, new day, new challenges.  I'm ready, Lord. 

Andrew