Finding Focus

Greetings friends!
This is your "Transitional Navigator" Jared Heaton coming to you one last time over the friendly "web-waves" as I write my last installment in the NHA blog. This Sunday will be my last with NHA as I've taken a position with a Converge church in Minnesota as their senior high youth pastor. The church is called First Baptist Church and its in the small town of Cambridge. I know, the name is kind of generic, not nearly as hip and fresh as New Hope Ashland, but they've actually got a daughter church in town named New Hope so that name is already taken. And I'm rambling...
So, because this is my last Sunday, I wanted to leave you all with something that's very special to me, a sermon that truly comes from my heart. When I was in Haiti a few months ago, I allowed myself to get so consumed by the work of the ministry that I failed to nurture the relationship that begets the ministry. With my personal relationship with God weakened, I returned from the trip exhausted and without the focus required to lead others in spiritual growth. Luckily, I had prepared thoughts and notes for the upcoming Sunday sermons before the trip and by the following Sunday, I was encouraged and ready to bring the Word. It was a close call though and a real wake up call to keep my eyes where they need to be first and foremost. In order for any of us to be effective witnesses of Christ in this life, we have to train our eyes on Christ alone. Hebrews 12:2 speaks to this in that, the reason we look only on Jesus is because he is the creator and sustainer of our faith. Without our eyes on Christ, all our service lacks meaning and true motivation. I can point to multiple times in my life where I have taken my focus off of Jesus and all of a sudden I'm feeling exhausted and unproductive. Have you ever felt like this? Join us this Sunday to hear the rest of what Christ has to tell us about his life-giving power and to hear some examples of people who learned this lesson the hard way.
Also this Sunday, Dan Peterson from Converge will be back with us to worship with us and to lead the second Town Hall meeting of all NHA members/attendees. Last month, Dan collected input from all of you and this Sunday he's going to deliver the information gleaned from that input and help us map a future for NHA. Your participation is vital to the future of NHA. This is YOUR church. God has brought you here to work through you. We'll meet following the worship service and we'll provide pizza and pop for lunch. See you then, my brothers and sisters!

Heaton, out.

He Has Risen!

This Sunday marks a very special day in the life of any Christian. Easter Sunday represents the truth that Jesus Christ was more then just a good man, a moral teacher, and a motivating leader. His resurrection proves that he was in fact, the Son of God just like he said he was and that the kingdom he spoke of is not measured in castles and military victories. Jesus' sacrifice and resurrection are evidence that love is the building blocks of lasting community, not physical domination. Physical domination begets subjects but love begets friends, brothers and sisters, and faithfulness. This Sunday is about so much more then a man coming back to life, it's about all of us being brought back from the deadly sting of sin. This is why we celebrate and this is why Christianity has survived over the millennium!

This Sunday, we'll be remembering the resurrection of Jesus and recounting our own resurrection from death in our sinfulness. Worship will start at it's regular time, 11 AM, but I'd also like to invite you out at 10:30 AM to join us in prayer before the worship. Prayer brings people together, both physically in the local church and spiritually in the global church, and I hope that a desire for community runs deep in NHA. Our prayer time is without agenda, but we do hope to have opportunity to lift up individuals from our church needing prayer, NHA, our church denomination leaders, and ask God to fill us up again with his love and understanding. I would love to see you there. Hope you can make it!

Also on the bubble, April 11th is my last Sunday at NHA! It has been an honor and privilege to serve as your "Transitional Navigator" for the last few months and I hope to have the chance to thank each of you over the next couple of weeks. Converge is hard at work finding the permanent pastor for NHA and will be working closely with NHA after I leave. These are exciting times, for NHA and for me, and it's our faithfulness which will guide both of us to what the Lord wills.

See you Sunday!

"Lost and Found" Wrap-up and Looking Ahead

Bonjour NHA! (Bonjour is Creole/Haitian for "good morning")

While Haiti was amazing, and we saw so much of God's presence there, it feels good to be back in the U.S. with all of you. I hope you were all blessed by Dan Peterson sharing with you at the beginning of the month and that this last Sunday's message about the Lost Son was a nice return to our series on "Lost and Found."

Speaking of "Lost and Found," we finish up that series this Sunday with a second look at the Parable of the Lost Son. We'll be considering the attitude of the older son, the one who stayed home all along, and what his attitude says about welcoming new believers into the Body of Christ. As I prepared for this weekend's sermon, I was confronted with issues with my own attitude towards new believers in Christ and so I'll be sharing out of my own heart a lot this weekend.

Looking ahead, here's what's on the horizon for Sundays at NHA:

+April 4: Easter Sunday! Come celebrate the risen Christ with us at NHA. We'll be meeting at 11 AM for worship as usual, but we'll also be having a special time of prayer before service at 10:30 AM. NHA is going through some serious times of transition and we need to be faithful to humbling ourselves to God's divine providence. Join us at 10:30 AM as we remember that the power which raised Jesus from the grave is available to us as we look to the future of NHA.

+April 11: This will be my (Jared's) last Sunday at NHA. As I write this, I'm visiting a church in Minnesota that has asked me to be their Senior High Youth Pastor. Join us Sunday, April 11, after the service for a group lunch as we just encourage one another and laugh about the last three months. Remember the time I forgot to tell everyone to sit down for announcements? Remember the time we met in the library and there were cheerleaders everywhere? Haha, good times!

Blessings NHA! Enjoy your weekend!

Jared

I'm leaving, on a jet plane...

Hey NHA!
I hope you're all having a great week and that you were able to get out an enjoy those few hours of sunshine yesterday, hopefully we'll see more of that and less of the white stuff here in March. I read in the newspaper today that Mansfield had the most snow out of any Ohio city in the month of February. A whopping 49.1 inches! That is just amazing.
As many of you already know, I leave for Haiti this Thursday. I'll be down there for 11 days helping a church put the roof on their new building. This is the same church that I and a team of young adults from my church in Mansfield visited last summer and helped pour the foundation for the building. I can't wait! I love working with my hands and helping to share the love of Christ through tangible, hands-and-feet ministry. I can't speak Creole, the native language, but everyone understands hard work and the gift of a building to gather in to give praise and honor to God. If you think to pray for me in the next weeks, pray for strength, a good attitude, and for the health of myself and the other 13 guys going down. Haiti is a rough country and I know the devil is going to try and discourage us and I pray that we might have the resolve to lean upon God and not ourselves to make it though.
In my absence (no, I won't be flying back for Sunday mornings!) Dan Peterson from the district Converge office will be sharing with you on Sunday mornings. Dan has a deep passion for up-and-coming churches such as NHA and I know what he brings from God's Word will bless you. So, come and join us this Sunday once again at 11 AM in the Little Theater of Ashland High School. The coffee will be hot, the fellowship will be warm and inviting, and the Holy Spirit will no doubt enter in like a gentle breeze.
Bon voyage, auf wiedersen, ciao, and see you later, alligator!

This weekend at New Hope Ashland!

Isn't Ohio weather a great example of how insignificant we are and how great God is? I pray, I shout, I plead with the heavens and yet, only God knows what the morning is going to bring! Will it snow? Will it rain? Will the sun come out and warm this place up? Who knows! But lucky for us, God is good and has everything under control.

Thanks to everyone who came out to worship with us in the library this last weekend. It was cozy, the Word was brought, and the coffee was still hot, so I'd count it a success! This weekend we'll be back in the Little Theater at 11 AM and looking at what God has for us in Luke 15:8-10. "The Parable of the Lost Coin" is relatively short, but is packed full of instruction for us who claim to follow Christ. Do we value the lost like God values the lost? Do we value them like the woman in the parable values her lost coin? If we don't, we need to! Christ's gives us practical steps to finding the lost in these few verses and that's what we'll be looking at this weekend. See you there!

Now that small groups are underway, I'd like to hear how they're going. If you have a story that you can share from your small group that you think would encourage others in their journey with God, send them to me at jared@newhopeashland.com. Stay tuned for details on the next KIA event for NHA coming up in March! And finally, the baptism service for this Sunday has been postponed. Instead of moving from the high school to the Ashland University Rec Center this Sunday, we'll just stay at the high school for regular Sunday worship. Continue praying about being baptised if haven't already and just let me know when you're ready to take that next step!

May the Lord bless you and keep you this week, NHA!