Issue No.

40, February 2013

Praise and Glory to God:

God continues to provide faithfully for Renewal in every way, encouraging us weekly as He continues to build our church body in number and spiritual growth. Praise God for opportunities to love, serve, and engage our city through events like our fall festival, DNA hunts, and school breakfasts. Praise God for the new families and individuals whove joined Renewals mission to make disciples in Greenville and around the world.

Praise God for the gospel partnerships He has provided and for their faithful support of Renewal and our people.

Renewal Church Prayer Needs:

Continue to pray for our elders, that God would guard and protect them, and that they would be encouraged daily in the Word. Pray for clarity, discernment, and wisdom as we continue to seek options for a larger space to serve as our permanent church home. Pray for our local schools, teachers, and students. Pray that God would continue to grow our people and families daily, and that our Small Groups and Clusters would serve well in this process. Pray for our church and missions partnerships.

Renewed Love for God

1

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Romans 12:1-2)

Renewal Church welcomed 2013 with many changes and much growth! God graciously provided a home for us at Greenville Tech for the last year and a half; however, due to campus closing every holiday we moved to Mitchell Road Elementary School for the Christmas holidays. The Lord has graciously moved again as we've been granted permission to stay at Mitchell Road, which is a huge blessing to us! The move to MRES provides us the opportunity to continue serving this school intimately, room to grow as our adults gather in the cafeteria and the children gather in the gym, and many neighborhoods nearby that we can invest our time and energy. Over the holidays we took a break from our "Beautiful Chaos" series to examine The Church's command to spread the gospel around the world, our nation, our city, and our spheres of influence. We have now resumed our trek through 1 Corinthians, picking back up in 1 Corinthians 8 and 9, where Paul teaches that love provides the

foundation for decision making in the life of a believer. We model Christ to a watching world when we choose to give up our rights in order to care for brothers and sisters in Christ with consciences that are pricked in different areas as we seek to win the lost to Christ. Like Jesus and like Paul, we "look not only to our own interests but also to the interests of others...[like Christ who] though He was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2:5-8)

Most of us, sadly, are not disciplined in spiritual matters because we have not fully given ourselves to God and His mission. Pray with us that God's mission would move the hearts of our people to give up their rights and discipline themselves for the sake of multiplying disciples. We recently started back with our Study/Serve hour just prior to our corporate worship service. We are committed to the value of theological education as a necessary component of growing in Christ, and were excited about this opportunity. The content of our studies are centered on the core doctrines of the Christian faith. Therefore, we have relaunched the study hour under the banner of "Core" with two Core classes. Core: Scripture is a survey course of the Bible to gain an understanding of the Scriptures as a whole. The other course, Core: Gender, addresses issues of biblical manhood and womanhood. Thus far we're receiving great feedback from the students as they have been attending, and we look forward to seeing the fruit of Gods teaching in and through the body at Renewal in the months and years to come. On Jan 24th, we had 18 new Small Group leaders and apprentices gather for group leader training. Hugh cast vision from the Scriptures for biblical community and why it's necessary that Renewal strive hard to have healthy, multiplying Small Groups. Over the next couple of weeks, we will be launching six new Small Groups in different parts of the city with the hopes of maximizing our ability to shepherd and serve people well in our city.

In 1 Corinthians 9:24-27, Paul challenged us to see that mission drives a disciplined lifestyle. When we, out of gratitude to our Savior, take up His mission to make disciples, we will discipline ourselves to accomplish this task.

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Renewed in Relationships

Everyday they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts. (Acts 2:46)

Renewal Kids Ministry

Due to God's faithfulness and donor generosity, Renewal Kids is growing in many ways. As youre probably aware, our equipment trailer was stolen prior to the holidays, leaving us the obstacle of replacing all of our children's ministry supplies. We have been overwhelmed by God's graciousness as churches and families gave and gave to rebuild the ministry. We were able to purchase a new trailer and new supplies, and we are in the process of purchasing electronic check-in tools to make our ministry even more secure. We have more than 90 Renewal partners serving in Renewal Kids on a monthly rotation. There are four classes serving an average of 30 children each Sunday, from infants to grade-schoolers. God is blessing and growing our church and ministry through new births. There are six families expecting babies by July 2013 and several families pursuing children to care for through adoption, fostering, and Safe Families. We are beginning a new Desiring God curriculum with our Bigs (3 and 4 year olds) and Grade school (1st through 5th grade). The Bigs are doing a study of the Old Testament, and our Gradeschoolers are studying the name of God. God is so faithful to His people, and we can't wait to see what he has next for us!

It was a sweet time to worship and sit under the them in His Word. It was truly a moving time. authority of God's Word together with 60,000 plus college students from all over the world. Jesus was put on clear display by those who taught and lead the conference, and we are grateful for the fruit of obedience we are seeing in students' lives because of it. As we find ourselves a few weeks into the spring semester now, we are seeing God continue to awaken hearts to Him. We have a very strong crew of college seniors who have intentionally committed their last year of college to investing in underclassmen and making disciples for Jesus. We are seeing more and more students wrestle through how the Gospel speaks directly to their future decisions with graduate school, career, and relationships. We have several who are pursuing serving this summer, either here in our city or in countries like Honduras and India through the Generation-Link program.

The students of Renewal made many different decisions during the weekend. One young man from our group felt God calling to him to repent of his sins for the first time. Other students were challenged to get rid of sin in their life and some made a commitment to spend time with the Lord each day in Bible reading and prayer. Toby commented that, This was the best Meltdown we have experienced in the past 15 years.

Renewal College Ministry

These days have been rich ones in the lives of our college students around Renewal! Our team of college and young adults returned from Nicaragua in late December with hearts full and feet motivated to live life full and for the greater glory of God. Our hearts were spurred on towards Christ's mission and the need for the gospel worldwide. We were also able to take a group of students to the Passion Conference in Atlanta over New Years.

As we look to the coming days, we are excited about kicking off college small groups that will meet very close to campus for students. In just a few weeks, our college students will have the opportunity to serve both in Anchorage, AK and in the city of Greenville through our college spring break missions. We are grateful to God for his favor in the lives of our college students! Thank you for continuing to join us and partner with us as we seek to maximize God's glory!

How You Can Give to Support What God's Doing at Renewal

Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. (Acts 2:45)

Thank you again for your commitment to give to Renewal Church! Your faithfulness has been a blessing to our church and our efforts in the city. See the following information on how to give:

By check: Place a check in the pre-labeled envelope along with a stamp, and mail to Renewal Meltdown Student Conference Church 4 Davis Keats Drive, Greenville, SC 29607 Sixteen students and adults from Renewal were Online: Go to www.renewalchurch.cc and click on blessed by the moving of the Holy Spirit during the Online Giving at the bottom of the home 2013 Meltdown Student Conference in Pigeon page. Click Register to give a one time gift. Forge, TN. Christian rap artist, Shai Linne, opened Automatic Draft: up the conference on Friday night. He shared the Go to www.renewalchurch.cc and click on Online Giving at the bottom of the home truth of Gods Word through the talent with which page. Click Register to complete your God has blessed Him. 33Miles led in worship automatic draft. throughout the weekend, and comedian Bob Smiley delivered many laughs. Mike Keahbone A few reminders: taught from Gods Word, sharing on the All gifts are tax deductible. forgiveness of God and the worshiping of Him in Please make us aware of any address changes or quiet time. Renewal students were inspired in the changes to your giving so we can make the Send an email to Sunday morning service as we read through Psalm necessary adjustments. 119. Each student read aloud when God spoke to church@renewalchurch.cc to update your information!

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