God's doing something!

Last Wednesday Greenville NewSpring had our first Fuse service and right at 100 students showed up. Here's my problem; I forget where God's brought me from and only see the present. I look at the fact that NewSpring runs close to 10,000 people every Sunday between two campuses now and look at the fact that Anderson Fuse have over 500 students every week. When I look at it that way, 100 doesn't seem to impressive. Then God does what He always does and reminds me.

I started working with youth at NewSpring a little over 2 years ago. We were still broken up into separate ministries; high school and middle school. I worked with Ignite which was the middle school ministry.

I remember my first night pretty well. I remember that John Allgood was the first person I talked to because I only knew one other person there. I remember having my mask of confidence up even though I was extremely uncomfortable with where I was. I remember playing four square with students (which we should bring back because I could beat the students at that a lot better than I can anything on XBox). And above all, I remember being overwhelmed by the fact that there were 100 middle schoolers in what used to be a store at the Anderson mall.

In fact, we averaged 100 students a week for most of my first year occasionally going higher or lower. And I'm pretty sure that with the high school ministry, we had about 200-250 students come through the Fusebox on a weekly basis.

Here's the thing that blows me away, though. When we were running 100 at the Fusebox, that ministry had been around in some form for a few years. NewSpring as a church has been in Greenville for 12 weeks. Only around half of the people who are attending had actually heard of the us before then. And Fuse is only 4 weeks old. We had 100 students on our fourth meeting!

And in case you're not keeping up, that's 100 students on our fourth meeting at a youth group for a church that didn't exist 13 weeks ago. It's not NewSpring's name that's drawing these students in. In fact, many of those 100 had never walked into the building before Wednesday.

Before every meeting each week I've worried about whether anybody will actually show. I'm worried about it now for tomorrow. But there's no need for it. We're not putting on a show every week, no one even knows what NewSpring is, and none of us really have a clue what we're doing. The only reason these students keep coming is because Jesus wants them there! He wants them! I hope that excites you as much as it excites me.

I can't even imagine what this ministry will look like this time next year. I can't imagine what it'll look like next month. But God is doing ridiculous things and I'm so amazed that I get to be a part of it. I don't deserve this in any way, but I am thankful for it.

Zap

I don't know why, but I can't look away!
I found this thanks to Crummy Church Signs. You should probably check them out.

David Update

So, on top of the fact that I don't write on here nearly as much as I wish I did, I also very rarely give "David updates" on what's going on in my life. I typically learn something really cool about God, write about it, try to sound deeper than I really am, and move on with my time. So here's a (seemingly) fun, "where I'm at" post. This is definitely a post for those who know me and want some details about what's going on in my life. I'm not sure it'll be very entertaining, so feel free to skip it if you find that kind of stuff very trite.

I'm a pretty happy kid right now. I'm working in more of a leadership role in starting up the youth group at Greenville NewSpring which is taking up a little more of my time, and I'm sure will take up even more time in the near future. I'd love a new job, but I'm getting along great with the people there. And, the thing is, because I'm doing more with the youth group, it's really helpful having set hours that allow me to do all of the evening stuff I need to do. Not to mention, there's about three days in the week where I have very little to do at work, so that's going to come in handy more and more as I start contacting more people for church stuff. So, as much as it might suck, my job is actually pretty ideal for my situation.

God's blessed me with some amazing "new" friends lately. I say "new" but in reality I've known these people for a while. But in the past few months we've all sort of started hanging out and getting closer. It's pretty awesome. There are two married couples in the bunch, but thankfully John is there to be my date every time. I'm not sure what I'll do when he starts dating someone. I don't really like to think about it. So could we just move on?

My family's awesome, though we are going through some rough times. Dad's having a harder time with his treatments for his leukemia this time around. (And I spelled leukemia right on the first try!) And there's been some other illness throughout, but God's getting so much glory out of the whole situation. However, prayers are always welcome and appreciated.

When I get to see my roommates we have a blast. But that seems to be happening less and less lately. Brandon has officially picked Megan over me, and it's a little heartbreaking. But, I can't blame him, I'd have done the same. She's much prettier than me, after all.

My relationship with God has been a little weird lately. He's definitely been a lot more silent with me, which is rough because of how vocal He's been in the past few months. It's hard to adjust to and I've been wondering what I'm doing wrong, but I know that's not the case at all. This is just a time to be faithful to what He's told me in the past and be patient until He speaks again.

Favorite color: Blue

Most annoying thing: Getting crap in the little speaker holes of my computer. You just can't clean in there.

Currently reading: 1 Samuel and Harry Potter. (Saul and Snape sure are misunderstood fellas.)

Wish I had: An iPhone.

Girlfriend: No time. I'm dating Jesus. (How disturbing of a sentiment is that for a guy to say?)

Missing: Theresa. (She just doesn't love me enough to call.) And Josh. (I hope Europe doesn't turn your sense of humour too dry. (I threw in that extra u just for you buddy.))

Google Reader subscribers: 2 (And that's more than I expected. I'm not sure who the second person is and that bothers me a little.)

Dagon

Around October of last year, I read the short story "Dagon" by H.P. Lovecraft. As far as I remember, it was a story about a suicidal sailor whose ship washed up on some uncharted island. While there, he looks upon a huge monster. This monster was unimaginable. It was powerful, hideous and the main character went insane just by being in its presence. That's the kind of power that I can't even imagine. I've even read that some critics believe that it's possible that, since this monster wasn't given a name in the story, it wasn't even the god Dagon, but a worshiper of Dagon. So, if one considers the power of the worshiper, it's hard to even conceive of the power of Dagon himself.

So it was with this in mind that I read 1 Samuel 5 today. Do yourself a favor and read the first five verses before you read the rest of this. Now I realize that there's a whole mythos surrounding Dagon historically that has nothing to do with Lovecraft, but this is just me reading from my own experience, and I think God's cool with that.

Imagining how powerful I view the Dagon of that story to be, it just puts me in awe of the power of my God! When the Dagon idol was placed in the presence of God, he fell on his face. Whenever he was stood up again, not only did God knock him down again, but He completely mutilated him. This is true power; that God is so good and holy that nothing unholy can stand near Him.

I've face a few things in my short time on earth so far, but I in no way believe that I've scratched the surface of all that's ugly, powerful and monstrous here. And the rulers of this world could be described in exactly that way. They do have power and on our own, we don't stand a chance against any evil in this world. But in the presence of a Holy God, evil is forced on its face.

It gives me hope that I can completely fail. That on my own, I'm really not much of a threat to any evil in this world. But I serve a God who is sovereign over everything, both good and evil. Nothing evil can prevail in His timing.