88 :: Newsong Church

 

This morning we visited Newsong Church in Cornelius, a town in the north of the Charlotte metro. This church came recommended by friends of ours. That couple had a power outage at their house last night and did not make it to church this morning as a result. We really enjoyed Newsong! The high recommendation that we had received about Newsong were all validated - this is a solid and growing church with a great future.

We don't know exactly how old Newsong is, but we believe it has been around for multiple years, perhaps as many as ten. 

When we walked in, we were greeted in a friendly manner by multiple people. Such greetings always apply toward the impression that a church gives visitors. Definitely a friendly church.

The feel of Newsong was definitively modern, across all categories. This includes the structure of the building, the format of the worship, as well as the message. For example, Newsong has the whole dark auditorium thing going on, as well as modern praise music with the ubiquitous purple backlighting that so many churches have.

Despite being a typical modern church at first pass, this is definitely a place that has a uniqueness to it.

The sermon was given by Jeff Watson, the Lead Pastor of Newsong [link]. He has been involved with ministry in multiple capacities over his career. Jeff also has some historical tie to Freedom House that stems back to the early 2000s. While we don't have any background on that, he mentioned Troy and Penny by name with a big smile on his face. 

As part of being greeted at Newsong, we also met Julie Watson, Jeff's wife. She figured directly into our experience at Newsong.

The worship leader was Mikala Hooper. The worship leader role often sets the tone for a church experience, and Mikala and the band delivered very solid on that. They played a mixture of Christmas music, as well as the more popular praise songs of today.

Here are some pictures/videos from our entry into Newsong, and through the worship.

We quickly noticed that Newsong is a church that would qualify as evangelical, but also a church that would fall into the category of charismatic. We definitely saw this toward the end of the service. That was the moment where Pastor Jeff invited people to come forward to break disbelief, or renew their first commitment to Yeshua, or simply come forward to bring something specific to God. During that moment, Pastor Jeff told people that if they had a prayer language that they were invited to worship up front with that particular spiritual manifestation.

Charismatic, for sure.

Some people did come forward for special prayer at that time. While that was happening, Julie Watson walked over to us and gave us a word, as well as prayed with and for us. It was quite moving. Julie said that she wanted God to bless our ongoing visitation to one hundred churches. She also prayed for our family. Additionally, she prayed that what we are supposed to do together as a couple would be revealed to us in the fullness of time. She brought all of that praying to us with a weightiness of deep emotion. It was candidly very powerful and very touching when Julie prayed.

What about the message? 

As is to be expected in any church service, the message was the main focal point of what happened at Newsong this morning. The title of the message was "Rooted." Pastor Jeff gave it.

The message reminded those in attendance of the importance of being rooted in both the Word, as well as the Body. One point that Jeff made was to be rooted in the Word, which means spending time in the Word. He emphasized that if a believer is spending the majority of his or her time watching theology videos and/or reading Christian blogs online ("even the good ones!" Jeff emphasized), that we were not living in alignment with the obligation to be rooted in the Word itself - reading of the Bible. In addition to being rooted in Scripture, we need to be rooted in one another. The Body of Christ is a community that needs to be founded on unity with one another.

Jeff's message style was mature, forceful and convincing. His voice boomed. Much of what he said appeared to be in-the-moment, which is to say off the top of his head. And his tone was pastoral in the best sense of the word. He was guiding the flock this morning.

At one point, Jeff gave us the guidance to be patient with each other. He referred to a hashtag that people are increasingly using - #PBPGINFWMY. It stands for Please Be Patient, God Is Not Finished With Me Yet. It's a fine principle to portray out into the world, as well as an excellent premise to hear from others - even if they didn't explicitly say it.

So good.

Another thing that happened during the service was that Newsong prayed for another local church. Cornelius Baptist is looking for a new pastor at this time and Newsong prayed for that search. We have never seen anything like that, it was truly a first. It spoke volumes about this church and its commitment to being connected to the rest of the Body. Simply a spectacular thing to see!

We enjoyed Newsong to a high degree. It will surely continue to grow and flourish. As the larger church evolves into an entirely new format in the 21st century while maintaining its theological integrity toward the historical roots of the fifth, Newsong will grow and meet the needs of the people north of Charlotte. 

For that, we can be grateful.