Issue No.

26, October 2011

Praise God for His grace and provision:

God continues to provide faithfully for Renewal in every way. God has continued to raise up leaders who are being equipped for further missions and ministry work. God continues to bring new families and students to Renewal each week. Our people continue to engage the Scriptures in and through small groups and one-on-one discipleship. Praise God for the opportunities Hes

given Renewal to connect with local schools, agencies, and organizations. We are blessed to be starting our largest membership class to-date, on Sunday, October 9th.

Prayer Needs:
Pray for our elders, that He would guard and protect them as they lead and shepherd well. Pray for our community and city at large, that Gods name would be glorified and known. Pray for our upcoming partnership class and student Impact Weekend. Pray that our people would continue to seek the Lord and be obedient to follow Him. Pray that God would grant us wisdom and discernment as we engage the lost in our city. Pray for upcoming missions opportunities, one of which will take place in October, as we seek to take the gospel to the nations.

Renewed Love for God

During the month of September weve walked through the beginning of a series, Bound, based on the book of 1 John. This book has pierced our 1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of souls as it has challenged us to examine our God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and hearts to find evidence of regeneration through acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the several salvation tests that John gives in the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what beginning of his book. 1 John 1:5-22 continued is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. our study, showing us that the person and work of (Romans 12:1-2) Jesus Christ are the means and motive for life transformation. He is the light and as we abide in Him and walk in the light, our life is transformed As you know by now, we at Renewal believe that as He sanctifies us. Matt used a great illustration reading through an entire book at a time is the best of the gospel describing Jesus lassoing us when way to study the Bible. As a church we have we surrender to His call of grace. The illustration journeyed through the books of Acts, Colossians, declared that the Christian walk is not about us major passages in Luke, the end of Exodus and being good enough to hold on to one end of a beginning of Leviticus, and were currently in 1 rope while Jesus holds the other, or picking it up John. There are multiple benefits to this approach: and holding on tighter when we drop it. The the listener gets the full context of a passage instead Christian life is not about how good we are, or of pulling verses out of their context, the pastor is how well we obey: our goodness and obedience is forced to illuminate all passages of Scripture (even only moralism. The Good News of the Gospel is the difficult ones), and the listeners can begin to that Jesus has lassoed us He holds on to us, piece together the whole narrative of the Bible. makes us good, transforms us. All we are called to do is submit to His work in our lives. This truth proved a good place to start since the next three sections give tests to see if we are really in the faith: obedience to the Word of God, love for others, and love for God and hatred of the world. If we put all our efforts into obeying and loving, but we miss that it is Jesus who works in us to sanctify us, then we fall back to moralism. We must allow the gospel the good

news that through Jesus perfect life and sinless death, we are counted righteous and reconciled to God to motivate our obedience, our love for others, and our love for God and hatred of the world. If you would like to listen to any Renewal sermons, including any from the Bound series, you can visit our website at www.renewalchurch.cc/sermons, or subscribe to our podcasts in iTunes.

Matt Papa in Concert

Renewal hosted a concert with Matt Papa and David Walker on September 9th in downtown Greenville. Matt challenged the crowd to lay down the halfhearted pursuit of the Lord, and go all out. This means that the gospel sends us out on mission. It was a great night of worship as we sang together and received the challenge to join God in His mission.

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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)

Student Small Group

God has continued to bless our efforts in building our student small group and were having a great time getting to know these students as we dig further into the Word with them each week!

Multiplying Disciples Summit

During the final weekend of September we held our second annual Multiplying Disciples Summit. Jon Hagen, from Grace Harbor Counseling Ministries, was our speaker on the topic of Heart Matters.

holy, and full of wrath and love, justice and mercy. Once we see Him and His glory, our prayer is that we will join with Him in His mission as we are captivated by proclaiming the excellencies of His worth to people and places that don't know. Thus far we have studied the Great Commission, giving glory to God, and how every believer is a theologian. In the coming weeks, we will study the Trinity and the attributes of God.

Renewal Leadership Institute

This month we also began our Renewal Leadership Institute. This is an unique opportunity that the Lord has presented to us for a deeper level of theological training. On the weekend of October 28th-30th we will be having our first Impact Weekend. The theme is "Jesus 101", and is designed to help students learn more about God. We will study, sing, pray, participate in crazy games, race derby cars, and much more! We will even go mid-night bowling on Friday night. Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary approached Renewal about serving as an equipping center. This will afford students in the Leadership Institute to study and prepare for pastoral ministry while receiving academic credit without having to leave Greenville. This semester we are offering two courses: pastoral ministry & supervised field ministry. We are thrilled to be able to offer courses for credit, but even more excited for what this means for the future of our church planting efforts. We will be able to utilize the Leadership Institute as a leadership pipeline to equip, supervise, assess, and send future church planters.

A disciple is someone who forsakes all to follow Jesus, but many of us do not know how to forsake sin, idols, and the things of this world and follow Jesus in our own hearts, much less multiply this process in the lives of others.

Please join us in prayer for this event, for our students, and for our Renewal families who will serve as host homes for the weekend.

College Ministry
Our college crew spent a weekend together this month at our 2nd Annual Fall Getaway. We had a great time together, studying Gods Word and having some fun with ropes courses and much more. Please continue to pray for Dan, our college students, and for all of our adults that support our efforts to see God glorified on all of our area campuses.

How to Give
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 Church - 201 B. West Butler Rd. #151, Mauldin, S.C. 29662 Online Go to www.renewalchurch.cc and click on Online Giving at the bottom of the home page. Click Register to give a one time gift. Automatic Draft Go to www.renewalchurch.cc and click on Online Giving at the bottom of the home page. Click Register to complete your automatic draft. A few reminders: All gifts are tax deductible Please make us aware of any address changes or changes to your giving so we can make the necessary adjustments. Send an email to church@renewalchurch.cc to update your information!

Jon provided very helpful tools that equipped us with how to recognize sin in our hearts, repent of those, and submit well to Jesus work in us. In addition, he gave us some very practical tools to help us walk closely with others as they do the same. We are very thankful to Jon for his willingness to serve our congregation in this way.

Renewed Through Study

Our Study/Serve series this month has been on "Missions and the Glory of God." The premise of the study is that you don't do missions if you don't love God's glory. Therefore, we will attempt to study the Scriptures and paint a picture of God whereby we can see that He is infinitely beautiful,

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