Twenty Years of Thanks: Reflecting on God's Blessings at New Life

Worship is always great at NLCC. I know I am prejudiced, but honestly, I can’t think of a reason anyone would want to be somewhere else on Sunday mornings.

Sunday, Mike taught us a new song, “Firm Foundation,” and we had two really great special numbers. John Robertson sang “Even Then,” and Tonya Krueger closed out our service with the song “Thy Will.” Thanks, John and Tonya, for adding to our worship experience.

This Sunday, I get to lead us in a time of praise, thanksgiving, and dedication for the addition of the space to our Fellowship Center. This will be my last time to officiate at a dedication here at New Life, but in thinking back over our NLCC’s 20 years, I have been blessed on several occasions to have experienced God providing just what we needed at just the right time. Each was a time of prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and dedication.

In the first year, our steering committee paused and gave thanks when we secured the fellowship hall of the Seventh Day Adventist Church in Lady Lake for our Sunday services. It was probably only a year or so later when we began to fill up the space we were renting that God made it possible for us to move into the SDA auditorium, providing about three times the room we had in the fellowship hall. We paused and gave thanks.

A year or so after that, I remember a rainy Sunday afternoon when several people from New Life met for the first time on the property that would become our campus. We paused and gave thanks. We were not quite three years old when we built and occupied for worship what is now the Fellowship Center. We paused and gave thanks. Nine years later, we occupied our present worship building. We paused and gave thanks. Property on our east border became available, and we were able to purchase 6 additional acres, bringing our total campus to a 15-acre site. We paused and gave thanks.

And now this Sunday, we will gather in the expanded Fellowship Center to pause and give thanks. It is a space that we have needed for a long time, and I believe that in a short time, we will wonder how we ever got along without it. There will be a service after each of our morning worship services. They won’t be long, but long enough for us to pause and give thanks.