NLC Connect April 23 2024

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24
6:30 pm - Prayer Gathering, Room 113
6:30 pm- Worship Team rehearsal

THURSDAY, APRIL 25
5:30 pm - CELEBRATE RECOVERY meal, worship, groups

FRIDAY, APRIL 26
6:00 p.m. - Dinuba Chamber of Commerce Annual Awards Banquet - Veterans Hall (purchase tickets at the Chamber)

SATURDAY, APRIL 27
11:00 a.m. - Tulare County Women of the Year Awards Luncheon - Dining Hall (purchase tickets through Tulare County)

MONDAY, APRIL 29
6:00 pm - CR Worship Team rehearsal

TUESDAY, APRIL 30
6:00 am - Men’s Bible Study on JOSHUA- Gym
9:00 a.m. - LIFT Women's Bible Study - Rooms 114/115
6:30 p.m. - The Healing Rooms of Dinuba - West patio of Worship Center

WEDNESDAY, MAY 1
6:30 pm - Prayer Gathering, Room 113
6:30 pm- Worship Team rehearsal

THURSDAY, MAY 2 - National Day of Prayer
5:30 pm - CELEBRATE RECOVERY meal, worship, groups

SATURDAY, MAY 4 
Fresno Pacific University Commencement - Selland Arena, Fresno

We love to celebrate your achievements!
Please email your graduate's information to:
office@newlifedinuba.org  or call the church office at (559) 591-1176

1. GRADUATE'S NAME
2. SCHOOL/COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY
3. GRADE or DEGREE (include area of study)
4. FUTURE SCHOOL/WORK PLANS (what HS/College/Career is next)

Received Last Week (4/21):……...... $4,020
Received this year to date:   ……..$235,229
Budget to Date: …….....…................  $261,762
Budget Goal: ………….........…....….....$400,342
Needed Weekly: …………..........….…….…$9,173

PLANNING AHEAD FOR SUMMER
The Elders are preparing to invite 3 NLC young people to be interns at NLC this summer, as well as having the entire NLC CREW youth group participate in Multiply's SOAR Fresno mission/ministry program. Please pray about how you might contribute to helping fund these opportunities for our young people. SOAR Fresno is $200/person. The internships provide for a $3000 scholarship each. Talk with Josh or Jessica Aquino for details.

Laurie and I met the first week of our freshman year at Tabor College (in Hillsboro, Kansas), and married one month after graduating, June 1984. Before my junior year in college I had experienced a call from God toward ministry. I finished my pre-med degree, anyway, and added a 30-unit co-major in Biblical/Religious Studies. Laurie and I began to pray for and search out opportunities in ministry.

Back then our denomination had a program called Christian Service. It was a 2-year voluntary assignment for single or married adults to try their hand in ministry. Plans were set in place for Laurie and I to go to Oregon, where Pastor Bob Vogt was pastoring. I had heard about him and looked forward to learning at his side. But plans would change. Pastor Bob had received a new call to pastor the Dinuba MB Church, and the new pastor, Sid Harms, wasn't comfortable taking me on since he was just coming in from Parkside MB Church in Tulsa. Laurie and I were invited to do our Christian Service at Blossom Valley Bible Church in San Jose, instead.

Some of you are already connecting the dots! Pastor Bob Vogt came to this church, which eventually became New Life Community. Though he and I never served together, we served the same church family. And Pastor Sid up in Oregon? Well, it was only 9 years later that I accepted a call to pastor his former church, Parkside MB, in Tulsa!

Our first two years in Christian Service in San Jose (1984-1986) were fun, but also discouraging. The youth group was growing, but the church itself seemed stuck in time even though it was right in the middle of the emerging Silicon Valley. I was unsure of continuing in ministry and began to pursue plans to bone up for the MCAT in hopes of getting into medical school.

It was during that time that Laurie and I came down to Immanuel High School to see my younger sister's choir performance. A man sitting next to me, Paul Stewart, asked what I did. I told him I was a professional job hunter. I didn't want to talk. That didn't stop him, and before long he was telling me that his church, Visalia United Methodist, was looking for a youth pastor. When we got home to my folks' place that evening in Kingsburg, the phone was ringing. Pastor Harry Wood wanted to meet me and set a date to come to San Jose for a preliminary interview.

At the church In San Jose, there were two middle-aged couples who served as youth sponsors along with me and Laurie. Effie Anderson was a go-getter. She was in the office every day, helping me set up, encouraging me, and even confronting me to be a better communicator with the team. She and her husband, John, often hosted the youth group in their home and backyard. I listened and learned from her. The day Pastor Harry was set to come see me at the church office, Effie was there. I was embarrassed to tell her or anyone that I was interviewing for a job at a Methodist church, and so kept it to myself. As I was trying to get Effie to leave, Pastor Harry drove up. Effie spotted him and immediately called out his name! She rushed to greet him as he was getting out of his car and they hugged and laughed. I couldn't believe it! Effie and John had been members of the Visalia United Methodist Church years before, and Harry had been their beloved pastor, leading them to faith and discipling them in ministry. Effie was such a blessing in our Mennonite Brethren Church in San Jose because Harry had been such an effective pastor in her spiritual growth at the Methodist Church in Visalia!

Pastor Harry hired me. And those next 6 years as Youth Pastor at the Methodist church in Visalia remain some of the most significant years of my ministry. It wasn't only Harry's mentoring, but being part of a team of 6 pastors and over a dozen ministry support staff that made the years so valuable. It was there I came to understand God's grace. It was there I learned how to pastor outside the walls of the church. It was there I watched women exercise their spiritual gifts and calling as pastors. And it was there that I was supported in receiving my seminary degree at the MB seminary in Fresno.

And yes, after that I went to Sid Harms' former church in Tulsa. Then to Newton, Kansas, and finally, my last church as far as I can see, at Bob Vogts' former church in Dinuba. It seems that God only needed one piece of thread to tie together a lifetime of seemingly disconnected experiences. Coincidences? Not in my eyes!