New Spring Visit

Michael and I drove to NewSpring Church in Anderson, SC yesterday to check out their student ministry, and to meet with their Youth Pastor, Brad, and his assistant, Whitney.

I was so thinking I was going to be a mostly-silent observer as Michael talked youth ministry with Whitney and Brad, but Brad's cousin, Barry was there visiting Brad, and he and I ended up chatting while Michael was hanging with Whitney getting the ins and outs of how youth ministry happens at NewSpring. Barry was so interesting. He'd traveled doing stage set up with BonJovi for 3 tours, he'd met Eddie Van Halen, and many other big-name rockers. He was a great talker and a great listener. I had a blast just sharing life stories with him.

Then we met Leslie, who is a volunteer at NewSpring. I think I remember her from Unleashed - the volunteer on the welcome team with the bull horn (I'm pretty sure she's the same person). Anyway, she was super sweet and welcoming, and it was so fun hearing Michael share the Suches, GA story with her, because she knew who most of the staff was from Revolution, and she keeps up with them on twitter.

I love meeting good, down-to-earth people who are willing to share their life in open and honest ways with other people, even complete strangers, which we pretty much were yesterday, but 5 minutes into conversations with Barry, Leslie, Whitney and Brad, it didn't seem like we were strangers at all.

I pray that I can be transparent and down to earth and make people feel as special as I felt yesterday.

Fuse is what we experienced last night at NewSpring. There was a lot of excitement there! The students had just come off their summer trip called the Gauntlet. Brad's message was a strong encouragement to all the students and especially to those who had attended the Gauntlet (about 550ish students altogether and Fuse experienced its highest attendance last night of 440ish students) to take action regarding what they experienced with God while they were at the Gauntlet. The music was rockin'! Everything was pumpin'! It was a great experience.

I'll have to blog about the gutsy video they showed later.
More to come...