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3 days and counting!

Our Miracle Weekend is only three days away! We have received so many amazing stories about what individuals and families are doing to increase what was entrusted to them. Here are just a few:

Hi There! At first I couldn't come up with anything to creative, but I went and bought a fall basket and filled it with dark green and ivory candles, potpourri, insence sticks and candle holders. I will be selling raffle tickets for it at my work for $3 for one ticiket or $5 for 10 tickets. I plan to do this all week. I hope I at least double the money. I am actually worried about not doing as well as I'd like to, but I dont want God to say NO DEAL to me, I want Him to say WELL DONE. ~Brooke

Having no idea what I was taking, I reached in the offering bucket and took an envelope. When I realized what Northway was doing my first reaction was to put it back. I’m a mother of four, my husband has a job that keeps him away most of the time and I do lots of volunteer work. My head was spinning. I settled down by talking to God. I had been given this beautiful bookmark a few years ago that I really loved. I thought “We could make these.” My husband said let’s go for it. With total trust, I went out the next day and bought everything we would need. That afternoon I told my children (who are 8, 4, 2 and 8 weeks mind you) that we were going to design and make bookmarks that we could sell, in order to make a miracle offering to Northway. I told them the same story Pastor Buddy shared and asked them to pray with me. We worked as a family all around the dinning room table. My two oldest picked out beads and stones they liked together, my husband cut the cords and tied the knots, my two year old handed me tools and my baby sat in my arms as we all trusted God together. By Tuesday morning we had made 140 bookmarks. By Tuesday night, we had sent out over 200 emails to friends and family. By Wednesday morning we had already sold 20 of them. We don’t know if we are going to multiply God’s money by 10, 5 or just merely give back what we were given. What we do know is that God brought our family together to work on this project. It is amazing to see Him work first hand in my family. Thank you Northway Church for having such amazing trust in God; that you would trust all of us with His money. We are praying that God will give us an outstanding miracle offering that we can give back to Northway. ~Katherine

We too felt overwhelmed when we received the envelope; not one $50 bill or two, but three $50 bills for our family to come up with a way to return five or ten fold. So we thought what does Pastor Buddy always talk about? HIS IPOD! We are having a raffle of an APPLE 4GB IPOD. I am good at crafts so I am donating a Christmas Wreath and a Goodie Basket as 2nd and 3rd place prizes. I am truly amazed at the imaginations this church family has. I know my friends and family are anxious to hear the results of this miracle. My family is blessed to pull together, have some fun, spread the word of GOD, and our church, and achieve the mission we set out to do. ~Stefi

Didn't take us long to come up with a quickest way to fund raise. Feed People! Having worked with various school events during the years we found that food always works. We are holding an Italian Feast at our home, selling tickets for $15.00 each, giving away door prizes, holding a 50/50 raffle during the event, and raffling off one large prize. We were able to get some local businesses to donate the door prizes. All the food, drink and large raffle prize will come from the $200 received from the church. We invited 56 people and had a response of over 25 coming just 2 days after mailing out the invitations. We even had four people call and ask to be invited. We will keep you posted. Sounds like God is looking to party! In God's Favor, Rick & Marj

Check back as we continue to share stories of how God is working through His church!

Deal or No Deal: Week 2 Recap

This weekend we took an inside look at God’s principles for financial management. What an eye opener! Pastor Buddy shared with us some staggering statistics about debt and finances.

We talked about how our culture is desensitized to the impact of debt; it is commonplace to live in significant debt! But God says that the borrower is enslaved to his/her debtor. So how can we be better stewards of the tangible resources God has entrusted us with when it comes to managing our finances? Check out the awesome principles and examples Pastor Buddy shared in the media center.

Things are really buzzing around Northway as we prepare for our Miracle Offering next weekend. We’ve heard lots of stories about the creative things people are doing to multiply the money entrusted to them a couple of weeks ago. We’ll be posting more stories we’ve received via e-mail this week! If you’d like to share your story with us, e-mail dealornodeal@northwaychurch.tv.

Feedback

We are already getting lots of fantastic feedback of what Northway Church is doing to prepare for the miracle offering! Here are a couple stories of what God is doing:

Pastor Buddy,

I prayed all the way home about your message. I am sooooo convinced that God will bless your faith and vision to accomplish his purposes. I pray that we will be faithful servants, all of us. I was hoping for a $10 bill in my envelope so that maybe I could 'swing it' on my own. But no, I was given a $50 bill. At that moment I knew it would have to be God, and God alone who would bless me with $500 that I could give back to Him November 19th.

I am a single Mom with four kids, working two part-time jobs, and I'm in graduate school. I really don't have any time to have a garage sale etc. But I believe that God will give me the money (from somewhere else) to give back to Him. I am convinced that God wants to do this work. I believe that this is just one more step of faith as God continues to show me more of his faithfulness. I will pray everyday and I look forward to emailing you with my story.

Jeri

Buddy,

I have to give you big PROPS for the BOLD challenge laid out this weekend. Your ears must be ringing! You may have given out 1200-1800 envelopes this weekend, but I guarantee 5400+ people will have heard of this challenge by 5:00 PM tonight! I've even called friends and family long distance to share the news and to get ideas!

I was thinking of what a great idea this was to take the good news of Jesus Christ to whole new level, without saying please tithe a $100 bucks! You know giving away this money was not a risk, and will be the "miracle blessing" that we are in need of for Clifton Park and more. I guarantee it to be more than 10-fold! The Pepsi arena was a HUGE risk and God pulled that one off. This is going to be small potatoes for God to accomplish. I too believe there's no challenges God can't meet with faith.

You never cease to amaze me with your creativity, energy and the ease of understanding Gods word on a weekly bases. My family and I our honored and proud to have the privilege to be a part of and attend Northway Church.

Godspeed!

Thanks for the feedback everyone! Share your story with us by e-mailing dealornodeal@northwaychurch.tv!

Deal or no Deal: Week one recap

This weekend really was one for the history books at Northway Church. Pastor Buddy spoke to us about the tangible and intangible things God has entrusted each of us with…our time, our talents, and our treasures. We were all personally challenged us to evaluate our stewardship of these items, and to think about what a great responsibility we have. Will we leverage our God-given resources for eternity?

The examples Pastor Buddy gave and the letters he read brought the message to life. We heard story after story about people who had experienced life change because they heard about Jesus Christ through Northway Church. Buddy concluded by emphasizing that nothing we do on earth lasts unless it is done for God. It’s all fleeting, but what we do for God is eternal.

Then Buddy talked about the story Jesus told in Luke 19, when three servants were entrusted a sum of money by their master. Each of the servants were asked to multiply it, and return it to the master as a sacred trust. One servant returned the same amount of money, and returned a five-fold amount. The third servant returned to his master ten times the original amount, and the master said to him “well done,” entrusting him with more responsibility as a reward for his stewardship.

God has clearly spoken to Northway Church that it’s time to expand our ministry and start another campus in Clifton Park, as we become one church in multiple locations that meets people where they are. We are taking the largest step of faith in the history of our church and are completely committed to making this happen.

Northway Church has put its money where its mouth is. In an unprecedented act of faith, Northway distributed $40,000 to its attendees this past weekend. Like the faithful servant in Luke 19, each person has been challenged and encouraged to use their God-given creativity to multiply God’s money and return it for our miracle offering. We are trusting God for a miracle offering on November 18th and 19th, with which to launch our Clifton Park campus.

Deal or No Deal

Beginning this weekend, November 4th and 5th:

Many of us, if asked, would say we trust God. We trust God with our salvation and our forgiveness; our health and our eternity. Yet, so often, when it comes to the tangible things in life, we draw the line. But a major aspect of trusting and honoring God relates to how we manage the tangible blessings He has given us. Join us for this exciting new series, Deal or No Deal as we discover the freedom of trusting God by applying positive biblical principles of money management. Click here to invite a friend!

E-motions series concludes with Baptism

This weekend, Pastor Buddy concluded the E-motions series by discussing challenge of managing the ups and downs of life. What a challenge it is to keep our E-motions steady through life's relentless ups and downs! God's Word not only provides us with practical wisdom on managing our E-motions, it also gives us powerful portraits of the consistent faith of others.

So many of the people we read about in the Bible successfully weathered ups and downs, like Paul and Silas in Acts chapter 16. After being beaten and thrown in prison, they made a choice not to let their emotions drag them down, but instead to worship God! They chose to praise God publicly despite the ups and downs of life, and in that moment, God did a miracle. Not only did He free them from the prison, He freed their jailer, too! Paul and Silas took a true down in the dumps moment to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Talk about controlling your E-motions! If you missed this powerful conclusion to the E-motions series, it will soon be up in the media center. The complete E-motions series will be available on DVD soon in The Source.

We also celebrated baptism this weekend. Over 60 people went public in their faith! It's such a joy when a church gets to celebrate with people taking this step of faith and obedience. We all cheered as we watched brothers and sisters...moms and dads...husbands and wives...believers from every walk of life stepping out in obedience to show the world that they believe in Jesus Christ! And over 20 of these individuals were from our student ministry! The next generation is stepping up and stepping out for God, and that's what it's all about.

Don't miss next week as we kick off our brand new series Deal or No Deal. Check back later this week for details!

Don't forget to FALL BACK!

Daylight savings time begins this weekend. Set your clocks back one hour on Saturday night...or you will be very early for church Sunday morning! Enjoy the extra hour of sleep!