Tech Tip #3 Free Bible Software

Our church found this free Bible software that reviles any commercial Bible software costing hundreds of dollars. I have used Wordsearch Discipleship Library, Biblesoft, Quickverse but none of those are as easy to use and comprehensive as e-Sword. It has lots of dictionaries, commentaries, resource books, maps and other helps. Rick Meyers has done the body of Christ a great service by creating this program for a wide spectrum of languages (tribes & tongues). If you are a Mobile PC or Pocket PC PDA user there is also a version for your PDA (free as well).
For the in depth bible students that need the Tense, Mood and Verb, just leave me a comment including your email and I will get it to you. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. Click on either e-Sword graphic for more info.

DNA to Multiply

Back in October, Freda and I felt that God wanted us to open our home on Thursday evenings for a New Life Small group meeting. Since then the group has grown from 8 to 20 with a gathering of 14 meeting tonight. We are honored to be a part of this group. It is a wonderful blessing to have a group of people to share life with - the joys and the sorrows. Today as I was thinking about our gathering the Lord impressed me to share with the group that one of the purposes why we exist is to be a catalyst for other groups by sending out leaders or hosts from this group to bring the same life giving ministry to others in the New Life family. May it be. May our tribe increase for the glory of the Lord.

If you are a part of New Life and want to know what happens in a small group meeting here are my 2 cents about the Herrell group. We gather ever Thursday evening at @ 7:00 PM. We visit and catch up on how everyone is doing while everyone arrives. We pull out the doll house and the Barbies for the kids. Sometimes we will sing a few worship songs. Our facilitator Rick Honeyager (center in the picture above right) prepares sermon notes and discussion questions (picture left) that we heard preached the previous weekend. This gives a little structure to our sharing. We review the scripture and discuss the questions while sharing similar things from our own experience. After looking for where these biblical truths intersect our daily lives we end in praying for ourselves and others. We almost always eat some quick snacks to finish the meeting. If this sounds like something you desire and would like more info go to http://www.nlbcs.org or click on the group picture above.

Small Group Picture Gallery: or .

Ideas - Can you help?

I am needing some creative input for a ministry idea. We had such a great season of outreach with Christmas On the Town 2006 that it compiles me to start considering another way to take worship to the streets.

Here are my brainstorms that I am praying about the possibility of:

• Easter version of COTT (Hanna says call it "New Life on the Town")



• Like COTT we could sing at local businesses



• At COTT 2006 several people asked for a CD or recording of the songs we were singing, The idea is to make a recording of some of the songs plus a New Life message from Pastor Steve and Jeremy to give away as a gift to adults. The gift for kids could be a small pack of Jelly Beans



• Instead of red sweat shirts we could have shirts made that have the New Life logo on them that could be worn at other times as well.



• We could use CD Traxs or our live Praise Band since the weather will be warmer.



• We could do worship in the park where we do a free worship concert. Question - How do we draw a crowd?

These are some thoughts. Here is where I need your ideas. Please respond by typing a comment to this post by clicking the link below this post. You can also help me pray about this possibility.

Kingdom Investment

"Creative ideas in creative people stir up more creativity". I don't know if this is a famous quote but I think it should be. About 6 weeks ago our church challenged us to invest in God's Kingdom by giving everyone $10.00 after teaching the from Matthew 25. The message taught how we are like the stewards that were given talents to invest. The ones who made a profit pleased the Master (Christ) and those who hide the money bringing back no interest we identified as lazy stewards. I seems that many of the congregation took the $10.00 and the message to heart.

Here is where the creativity comes in.

Here are some different ways that people invested for a profit:

• One lady painted a Christmas card. She made color copies and sold them for a profit.


• A child colored pictures of different things and sold them. I bought an original Brieanna entitled "Meatballs" for a bargain price of 25 cents.


• One avid outdoors man farmer is going to give horse rides at parties and gathers.


• One gentlemen gather a recording of New Lifers singing on the radio and made a 2 CD set to sell to those interested.


• Several families pooled their $10.00 and offered luminaries to fill the church yard for the Christmas Eve service. The same folks put together a fun New Life New Yeas Eve party selling food to raise funds.


• One woman was so moved that she has dedicated all the profit from real estate sells that are connected to the church to God's Kingdom.

An unexpected outcome from this challenge is the unifying feeling and energy of everyone focusing on the same thing - making interest, financial and spiritual for the Kingdom of God.