I recently read When Pride Still Mattered by David Maraniss, which is considered to be the definitive biography of legendary football coach Vince Lombardi. If case you've never heard of him, Lombardi was the head coach of the Green Bay Packers from 1959-1967. When he took over the team was struggling, having suffered multiple losing seasons. But under his leadership, the Packers became a dominant force in the NFL, winning championships in 1961, 1962, 1965, 1966, and 1967. Then, later on in … [Read more...]
Core Four: Duplicate
In 2023 we placed a major emphasis on our Core Four – the four core behaviors we want to see in all New Day staff - and this year we want to keep the momentum going by covering one of our core four each quarter. And today we’re covering “duplicate." To duplicate something is to make a copy of it. And this is exactly what we want each staff member to do: Make copies of yourself. You have certain competencies, a certain character and you live by a certain culture. And we want you to take who … [Read more...]
The Proper Focus of a Sunday Evaluation
Each Monday we evaluate the Sunday services, asking ourselves four simple questions: 1) What went right? 2) What went wrong? 3) What was missing? 4) What was confusing? This is a wonderful exercise for us to go through each week, because it helps us to get better. And as we know, when we get better, we get bigger (i.e., God blesses us with increased gospel influence in our region - which is just what we want). But there's a very important aspect of this evaluation time that we don't … [Read more...]
Why Doing So Good Feels So Bad
Last week our Directional Leadership Team went away for our third off-site of the year and I was surprised to learn how well we're doing. I guess I was surprised because I haven't been feeling (that's the key word here, feeling) like things were going well. So I basically asked the guys "Why does doing so good feel so bad?" And as we discussed the answer to that question, here's what we realized. So this is why doing so well feels so bad. And I bring this up so that we can all make a … [Read more...]
Does God Punish Children For The Sins of Their Parents?
Someone asked me recently: Does God punish children for the sins of their parents? In this post I’ll attempt to answer this question. This idea (that God punishes children for the sins of their parents) comes from the Mosaic Law (the law God gave to the Israelites through Moses): Admittedly, these verses, on their own, are a little confusing. So we need to turn to other Scriptures that speak to the question at hand to provide further clarity. For … [Read more...]
Small Group Leader Communion Guide
If you’re a growth group leader at New Day, here’s just one way you can lead your group through taking Communion… When God brought about a great deliverance for the Israelites from their slavery to Egypt (through Moses), He instituted a commemorative ordinance called Passover. In the same way, when God brought about an even greater deliverance for us from our slavery to sin (through Messiah), it was appropriate to institute another commemorative ordinance we now … [Read more...]
Homosexuality and Hate Speech
Years ago I briefly mentioned something Jesus said on the topic of homosexuality in my sermon to illustrate how some people twist the Scriptures and read meaning into them – to make them say what they want them to say. The next day I received the following email: “Your message has taught members of the church and the community to not accept and support the LGBTQ community. There is a lot of hatred going around in the world right now and it’s important that we do our best to love everyone … [Read more...]
Jesus and Homosexuality, Part 2
I once received the following email: “In the future when you want to talk about gay people in your sermons, just say what Jesus said about the subject, and that is nothing, nothing at all…Show me a quote by Jesus that is DIRECTLY condemning homosexuality, and the answer is, you can’t.. so don’t you do it either.” I can only assume that if I receive such feedback from time to time, you (the people of New Day Church) do as well. I’d like to share a biblical response that I would … [Read more...]
Jesus and Homosexuality, Part 1
Some time ago I received an email that stated the following: “Although in your eyes, it may not be right to be gay…in God’s and Jesus’s eyes, they are accepting and loving of it.” If you received such an email…or if a family member, friend or co-worker said something along these lines…how would you respond? I’d like to share what I believe is a biblical response and would encourage you, as God provides the opportunity, to share this response … [Read more...]
Change: Life’s Only Constant
Both my personal experience and leadership intuition is telling me that with the launch of our Agawam location, change is coming. The growth we’re believing God for there, when realized, will shake things up, and in this lesson I will do my best to prepare your minds and hearts for what I believe is coming, which again, is change. There are many people over the years who have written about change. For example… From these writings (and others like them) it becomes clear that if we … [Read more...]
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