Wow!  As I type this blog we are exactly 32 days and 23 hours away from the grand opening of New Life's 15th location in the Portage Park neighborhood of Chicago.  It is hard to believe that this Sunday, a team of people will be prayed for at New Life Jefferson Park and we will be sent out and the following Sunday on March 7th preview services will begin.

THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING.  REPEAT.  THIS IS REALLY HAPPENING.

It is hard for me to believe as from October to January I visited over 45 schools, churches, park district field houses, and banquet halls looking for a place to rent an auditorium for the birth of a new location of New Life Community Church.  Jefferson Park's second service is overflowing with people and literally bursting at the seams.  Another service had already been added.  Room needed to be made for more people and the best way to that was to multiply into a new neighborhood and begin creating room for more people.  For 4 long months I drove from as far east as Lake Shore Drive all the way to Harlem Ave looking for the best scenario for a new location.   After over 40 closed doors, through an amazing series of events, Luther North High School was discovered and it was if they were rolling out the red carpet to welcome us to rent space for worship services on Sunday mornings.

With over 50 ministry volunteers needed we are getting close to our goal and are excited about what God is doing.   What is even more exciting is that either by the fall or next spring a 16th location will be born and we are already praying for God's direction as a church as to where that may be.  It is exciting to be a part of a movement where God is at work.

One way anyone can help make a difference is to come to the "Prayer and Worship Summit" to help consecrate this location to the Lord.  On March 21st, people from most of New Life's locations will gather on a Sunday evening and through praying to the God of heaven make a difference on earth.   The event is free and will be powerful and is one of the most crucial parts of preparing to launch a new church location of New Life.

Thanks for your prayers,

Pastor Dwayne

 

 

 

The journey of life is full of interesting twists and turns.  I have tightened my seat belt and put on my shades of faith as my pursuit of the Son is taking a HUGE turn.  I have served God as a youth worker for 15 years of my life and this weekend will be the big finale.  We are taking 300 youth and chaperons to a youth conference called Acquire the Fire.  It will be my last event with the youth and then Sunday night marks a new chapter in my life.  We will be relocating to the far northside of Chicago and launching a new campus of New Life in partnership with New Life Jefferson Park.  The goal is launch by Easter somewhere in between the Portage Park and Rogers Park neighborhoods.  I am trying to build a prayer support team that is several hundred strong.  If you would like to be on my prayer team, please send me an email at pray4d@gmail.com or send me a text at (773) 41D-WAYN.  Please pray for the following three areas.  1) My family and where God wants us to live.  2) The geographical birth place of the new location as we are still exploring possibilities.  3) And the gathering of a core body of believers and core leadership team for the new campus.  Thanks for your prayers and get a few more details by watching the following youtube video: CLICK HERE  

If you can't stand the heat then get out of the kitchen!  I am looking forward to the NBA playoffs.  I am a true Miami fan living in Chicago.  It is exciting to know we have a player you can count on during crunch time.  Some players crumble under pressure and some rise to the top.

I am also excited about this series on stress.  I always thought I did well under pressure.  Yet, my first six years of marriage and gathering 4 children proved to be the biggest adjustment of my life.  I never new the pressure could be so great.  On one day I went from an independant single man to a family of 3!  I have no regrets and am grateful. But I have to admit, that even though I had worked with teens for years, parenting one is a whole different story.  And then throw in 3 babies in 4 years and now the kitchen stove has a bunch pots on the pressure cooker.  I will be preaching at two different locations and a youth retreat over the next three weeks.  BRING IT ON BABY!  Don't worry, I am learning the challenge is to great for me.  But I love to have a front row seat to God at work.  I will not be one of the boys who bails out when the kitchen gets hot!  I will not slow down nor back off. I will serve my family and be faithful to my call.  By God's strength and grace I will grow through the pressure and not crack up under the stress!  Please pray for me.  I need it :).

Looking forward to how far the Miami Heat will go and a milion times more looking forward to what God will do over the three weeks!

1 retreat = 48 hours = greater relational impact than 1 year of sunday school classes.

Hard to believe that the all church youth retreat is less than 10 days away! It is hard to believe that our first soul purpose youth retreat was over 10 years ago.  The testimonies are uncountable and the impact immeasurable, but let me share one story.  Last April, New Life Midway had a guys retreat to Pine Trails.  We were probably a little over ambitious, but we sought to have a 24 hour prayer room going on where our meetings were happening.  I was shocked to see with my own eyes a teenager praying his heart out in the prayer room.  He often has hard time sitting still and now he was praying for a full hour non-stop and out loud with passion for his family, friends, school and neighborhood.  I was in the prayer room and tired and barely making it, but some kind of fired touched this high school guy and even though he has had his ups and downs over the last year, he has been marked for life.  He will always be able to look back and know that God had touched his life and remember that night he was filled with God’s Spirit in a special way for a special purpose of intercession.  If you have been on a Soul Purpose retreat, visit the youth website and share a testimony on the events page and encourage others who may be going.  We will select some of these testimonies and read them at the retreat the first night.  Also, we are still in need of some sponsorships at several locations.  Our desire is that every youth who wants to go would be able to go regardless of their families financial situation.  You can also find out more about giving on the youth website.  Please pray for this to be our most powerful youth retreat ever!  

One cool thing I learned on my last fast...
Water is the fast-ers best friend!

I noticed a huge difference when I was drinking enough water.  Even with juice and vegetable fasts, drink alot of water.

As I was getting headaches today I drank a half liter of water and a half hour later I felt better.

I know the first three days can be challenging.  Don't quit.  If you forgot or messed up, start over and don't beat yourself up.  If you are doing a juice fast, after about 3 days of hunger your body switches into a different mode and the physical hunger pains go away.  But because your stomach has shifted gears, you have to be real careful in how you break the fast.

But as you begin to fast... The best tip that I can give you is to DRINK alot of water.  The link below is on how much water you should drink on a normal day.  When fasting, you should probably even drink more.

http://www.wikihow.com/Drink-More-Water-Every-Day

Grace and Peace to you as you intensify your pursuit of God Almighty!

Pastor Decrease Dwayne

I remember several years ago when two of my very closest friends were making some major wrong turns in their spiritual walk.  Both were my assistants for my home group for youth and it was breaking my heart.  I made a decision to fast until both were back on track or until 40 days came.  I felt a sense of urgency in my heart and saw it as an opportunity to wage spiritual warfare. I had prayed and didn't see any rays of hope and felt like desperate times called for desperate measures.

Within in the first week, one of my friends repented and stopped compromising.  My other friend however was pushing me to my limits.  My friend had a powerful testimony of how God rescued him from a gang lifestyle but had went back to drinking and other crazy stuff.  I hated how the enemy was like a lion shredding him to pieces.  But finally, after about 3 weeks intense prayer, he got back on track in seeking the Lord.

I know that God can answer our prayer yes, no, or wait and the same is true when we fast and pray.  There is nothing we could ever do to force God's hand behind his back and make him do what we want.  Ultimately our heart should desire to be led by Spirit in our prayers so that we are praying for things that our in alignment with the heart of God.

However, sometimes there is war in the spiritual realms that we probably could never understand.    And when we withhold from our physical bodies foods and we intensify our prayer focus and time with the Lord and His Word, we become more alert to this cosmic battle between good and evil.

A great example of this in the Bible is found in Daniel chapter 10.  In verses 2 and 3 Daniel says,  “At that time I, Daniel, mourned for three weeks. I ate no choice food; no meat or wine touched my lips; and I used no lotions at all until the three weeks were over.” Daniel 10:2-3   Fasting is a great way to humble ourselves before the Lord when we are broken and "mourning."   Daniel went without choice foods, meat and wine for three weeks.  At the end of the three weeks an angel appears to him and says that he had been sent from the first day he had started to pray but that a 21 day battle in the heavenly realms between a top demon (demonic prince of Persia) and Michael (on of the chief princes).

Sometimes drastic times call for drastic measures.  Perhaps some of us need to fast for our children, businesses, unsaved friends and family, our neighborhoods, ministries, and more.  What often happens in the process is ultimately God deals with us first.  In the process he points out areas that we need to work on and often he moves and works in unexpected ways in our areas of need.  But I would challenge you to begin to pray and prepare your heart for what God would have you do.  If he leads you to do an extended fast it is always wise to read resources on fasting to get prepare you spiritually as well as physically.  While I don't agree with everything Jentezen Franklin says, he has been a great mobilizer in leading people in fasting and has some great words of encouragement that I would recommend to everyone.  You can watch some short 2 minute video clips and get some frequently asked questions answered at http://www.jentezenfranklin.org/fasting/ .

While my two friends have had some ups and downs over the last decade, I was real encouraged to hear about one of them who is currently living in Texas and has a family and helps serve in the children's ministry in his local church.  Sometimes the seeds planted take a while to grow to their full potential.  Don't get discouraged and keep planting seeds and raise the intensity up a few notches in your prayer life by adding a fast.  Greater breakthroughs can happen when you mix prayer and fasting.

 

It is so hard to believe that the winter holidays are here.  Sometimes this season is real hard on people.  Others  really come to life as it is their favorite time of the year.  I can fully understand the challenge especially for those who have lost loved ones during this time of the year.

I am writing from the passenger seat as my 18 year old son drives us through the state of Illinois toward my real roots of rural Oklahoma. The first Christmas I remember was there.  I was seven years old and in the first grade.  My mom and stepdad went to Florida to get a place and get settled and my younger brother and I were living with grandma until the end of the school year.  My mom sent us a whole huge box of toys that were dollar store level.  I remember opening this big huge box of toys with my brother a couple of weeks early because we missed my mom so much.   But then Christmas came.  I remember waking up and there were no more toys.  My uncles and grandma told me that Santa must have delivered them to Florida by mistake and they would be there in a couple of days.  I was shocked.  I still remember being bummed out Christmas morning.  And then I remember a couple of days later getting my gifts and being so happy.  I was only seven but had a feeling they were not from Santa but from my mom.  One of my top ways of feeling loved is through gifts and it always means so much to me when I receive a gift.

As I head to Oklahoma for only the third time since I was at my grandma's funeral when I was in about the fifth grade....

As I head back to my humble roots here is what is on my heart:

1.  I am proud of and grateful for my family!  Now that I am an adult and pay the bills I really see the sacrifice of my grandma and uncles giving their time and money to take care of my brother and I two separate years. (1st grade and 3rd grade!). Now that I have kids of my own I know they are a ton of work and money.

2.  My grandma would send me to church every week and those were  the first seeds sown into my spiritual life!  I remember my aunt getting baptized.  I remember someone bringing my grandma an audio bible and we would listening to it often.   Even though I became a little delinquent in Miami, FL, those seeds did not come back void and those prayers did not go unanswered!

3.  I am glad I was born in Oklahoma!  Whenever I am asked where I am from, I usually answer Miami, FL.  I was proud of growing up in a cool, tough urban neighborhood.  But my family in Oklahoma gave me so much when by some American standards they might not have been up there on ladder of sucess.  But they have so much more in love for family, hospitality, and a slower paced life (for the most part :).

It is cool to go to a part of America where being a pastor is highly respected and up there with being a doctor or a lawyer.  I was shocked when one of my cousins thought it was cool that someone in our family had made it.  I didn't tell him that a "garbage truck driver" makes at least twice as much as a youth pastor in urban Chicago.  I love serving God though and look forward to seeing family. Spending quality time with them is why I love the holidays!

Changing the way we think
Pastor Decrease Dwayne

 

It is so hard to believe that the winter holidays are here.  Sometimes this season is real hard on people.  Others  really come to life as it is their favorite time of the year.  I can fully understand the challenge especially for those who have lost loved ones during this time of the year.

I am writing from the passenger seat as my 18 year old son drives us through the state of Illinois toward my real roots of rural Oklahoma. The first Christmas I remember was there.  I was seven years old and in the first grade.  My mom and stepdad went to Florida to get a place and get settled and my younger brother and I were living with grandma until the end of the school year.  My mom sent us a whole huge box of toys that were dollar store level.  I remember opening this big huge box of toys with my brother a couple of weeks early because we missed my mom so much.   But then Christmas came.  I remember waking up and there were no more toys.  My uncles and grandma told me that Santa must have delivered them to Florida by mistake and they would be there in a couple of days.  I was shocked.  I still remember being bummed out Christmas morning.  And then I remember a couple of days later getting my gifts and being so happy.  I was only seven but had a feeling they were not from Santa but from my mom.  One of my top ways of feeling loved is through gifts and it always means so much to me when I receive a gift.

As I head to Oklahoma for only the third time since I was at my grandma's funeral when I was in about the fifth grade....

As I head back to my humble roots here is what is on my heart:

1.  I am proud of and grateful for my family!  Now that I am an adult and pay the bills I really see the sacrifice of my grandma and uncles giving their time and money to take care of my brother and I two separate years. (1st grade and 3rd grade!). Now that I have kids of my own I know they are a ton of work and money.

2.  My grandma would send me to church every week and those were  the first seeds sown into my spiritual life!  I remember my aunt getting baptized.  I remember someone bringing my grandma an audio bible and we would listening to it often.   Even though I became a little delinquent in Miami, FL, those seeds did not come back void and those prayers did not go unanswered!

3.  I am glad I was born in Oklahoma!  Whenever I am asked where I am from, I usually answer Miami, FL.  I was proud of growing up in a cool, tough urban neighborhood.  But my family in Oklahoma gave me so much when by some American standards they might not have been up there on ladder of sucess.  But they have so much more in love for family, hospitality, and a slower paced life (for the most part :).

It is cool to go to a part of America where being a pastor is highly respected and up there with being a doctor or a lawyer.  I was shocked when one of my cousins thought it was cool that someone in our family had made it.  I didn't tell him that a "garbage truck driver" makes at least twice as much as a youth pastor in urban Chicago.  I love serving God though and look forward to seeing family. Spending quality time with them is why I love the holidays!

Changing the way we think
Pastor Decrease Dwayne