Nathan Neighbors
Follower of Christ, Husband, Father, & Youth Pastor
We just finished our launch service for Ignite. Ignite is the new contemporary worship service for students at Morningside. It went really well. We had about 50 people tonight for our opening service. This was a great “spark” to start this Ignite service that gives students the opportunity to fan the flame of their faith during the middle of their hectic week. The Ignite worship band was awesome, Cathy led our scripture reading and Lee Lancaster gave a wonderful testimony about what God’s up to in her life. It has been wonderful seeing our students take steps forward in their walk with Christ and in their leadership.
This service is really an outgrowth of our Mission Poland team and the student’s desire to introduce their friends to Christ. So, a small team of our students worked for the last month to start this service and tonight was the launch. We kicked off a four week series tonight on Truth. There are alot of ideas in the world about what is “true.” The point from tonight’s message was – “you either live by faulty sources of truth or by Truth.” As we spend the next few weeks considering the truth of Christ – pray that students will come to Ignite and meet Christ and understand the Truth of who he is for the first time. If you missed Ignite tonight, please come to church Sunday or to Ignite next Wednesday.
We made the news. In the August 28th edition of the Baptist Courier, they published an article about our recent Youth Mission Trip to Poland. Here is an image of the article that can be found at there website in the news section. The Courier’s website is http://www.baptistcourier.com. The actual article that was printed in their newspaper, included the group picture we took on the steps with the whole camp at the Seminary in Warsaw. It’s great to see fellow believers around our state hearing about all the things God did in the lives of our students at Morningside and in the lives of the young people in Poland. Maybe it will encourage other churches to send youth mission teams on their first international mission trip.
Image the kind of impact we could have on the Kingdom if every Baptist church youth group in South Carolina sent a mission team out this summer (whether here in the USA or abroad). That would be awesome. You might assume that all church youth groups send out mission teams – that’s just not the case. I can remember last summer sitting among a group of about 600 students (representing about 100 or more churches) at Centrifuge and being one of only about 10 churches who were going on a mission trip that summer. During one of the services the camp pastor had these churches who were going on mission to stand and they prayed for us. Though I was grateful for the prayers, I was broken hearted over how few people stood up. May we be not only be on mission at Morningside, but also encourage other churches to do so as well. We still have a Great Commission. It doesn’t end until Christ returns. May we always be “going.” Or as my friend Tracy Turner always says about Sunago at the Spartanburg BCM – “we gather to go”! That’s what it’s about.
Today was a big day in the life of the Neighbors family. Anderson started 4K at Pine Street Elementary School and Ellis had his Open House this morning at Morningside for his 2K class. It’s hard seeing them grow up, but it’s exciting at the same time. We love the boys so much and want them to grow up to do great things and become wonderful – Christ following – young men…just not quite yet.
Anderson loved school today (especially all the different center times). He also had his first experience going through the lunch line like a big boy. So, the first day is over and the boys are fast asleep. Tomorrow we do it all over again – and thousands of times again before they leave our home and are all grown up. We don’t want to miss a second of it. We will treasure every moment and Ashley will document it with pictures every step of the way. Here are a few from today.
Nathan Neighbors 