What is a Life Pod?

Life Pods in essence are social interest groups, they are a way of connecting us [New Life] together, and with our city. They are designed to be simple, fun and generational, to take place once a month, on any night that suits the Pod, anywhere across the city.

A Life Pod could be anything that is a social interest: football Life Pod, eating Life Pod, shoe shopping Life Pod, cinema Life Pod, skating Life Pod,  supercharge an engine and fit it to robin reliant Life Pod!

The intention is that we as New Life have fun together whilst connecting with the city, because with any of these social interests you could invite your neighbour, friend, colleague to come and be a part of it.

If you are interested in hosting a Life Pod could you please register your interest by filling in the form on this page: Life Pods

What is a Life Group?

We need to become bigger and smaller at the same time. Big church is great but it can often be anonymous and it’s possible to be lonely in a crowd.

Debt is a huge problem in our society the total UK personal debt at the end of May 2010 stood at £1,460bn.

An average household debt in the UK is ~ £8,716 (excluding mortgages). This figure increases to £18,159 if the average is based on the number of households who actually have some form of unsecured loan. Every 13.4 minutes a property is repossessed and every 51 seconds someone will be declared insolvent or bankrupt.

Debt is a huge problem and somehow the Church needs to respond because it is wreaking havoc on peoples lives.

From September 2010 New Life will be partnering with Derby City Mission to launch a Basics Bank to help those who are trapped in a debt cycle, and provide clients with some help to breakout.

Basics Bank’s mission is to serve those on a low income by providing free debt advice, and food parcels for those who need it.  This is what we will be doing:

• Walk-in, no appointment clinics held every week.
• Prepare a financial statement, and sort debts into priority and non-priority.
• Income levels are checked and we will make sure that benefits are maximised.
• Negotiate affordable repayments with creditors.
• Check that the clients are using the most suitable means of payment.
• Apply, on our clients behalf, to various Trust funds to pay for energy or water arrears.
• Support our clients on an ongoing basis.

Derby City Mission will be providing us with a debt advice worker called Sharon Cullen, who will provide the expertise required to help the clients through the hard work involved in sorting out the necessary paperwork.

But that is not all we want to do, we want to create the friendliest, most welcoming environment we can for the clients of Basics Bank.

This is where you come in, could you give yourself to helping Basics Bank become the most successful it can be?

We want people to be free from debt and free to live a new life in Christ and part of the family of God, you can help that process by being a smiling face, bringing a cup of tea, a piece of cake, chatting with clients as they wait,  helping the clients with their children [if needed].

What is your part to play in helping alleviate debt and poverty? Every small part that someone plays moves us further towards seeing the grip of debt and poverty loosened in the 21st century.

Please contact the General Office if you would like to help with Basics Bank from September 2010. If you feel Basics Bank could help you with your debt then please contact the General Office on: 01332 349056

Statistics taken from www.creditaction.org.uk [Thursday 1 July 2010].

Vision is more than a dream, vision is strategising to make the dream a reality.

The dream for New Life has been to be a large church, with a big influence in the city of Derby. To see peoples lives touched and changed by the power of Christ and to observe people taking hold of the holistic life and purpose God has for them.

The church in the 21st Century is going to have to operate differently to the generations that have gone before them. Gone are the days of the Attractional Mega Church model, where you put on an all singing all dancing, seeker sensitive service where people will just come, as we have seen demonstrated over in the USA and other countries.

People today are looking for an authentic, real, no holds barred, down to earth church, where the bible is taught and explained in an engaging, understanding way and people feel as though they can come and explore without being judged.

Services are filled with life and energy because people expect to see that we are passionate about who we believe in and are not ashamed of the gospel.

The church is mobile and hard working and engaging in the community, where there is an authentic expression of the life transformation that we have all experienced.

We at New Life are on the move, moving into the fullness of the dream God placed on the hearts and minds of the leaders of New Life over the generations.

The Vision is to see more of all that God has for us as a church, to see the heart of this city, enthused with the heartbeat of God.

This is going to cost us, financially and with blood sweat and tears, but the inspiration of the dream far outweighs the cost, and the vision fund will help to make that dream a reality.

You can give financially into the Vision Fund via our offering envelopes.

Please also remember that if you are a tax payer we can claim 25p back from the government for every pound that you give, please fill in the gift aid details on the offering envelope to allow us to do this.

Each year for the past 8 years we have been taking our young people to Audacious (an annual youth conference); this is one of the highlights of our year.

Each year so far we have been stretched and challenged and I have no doubt this year will be the same with preachers from around the world, including John Bevere and Russ Evans.  Please pray for the youth and also the youth team whilst we are away that we would hear God speaking to us and that there would be life defining moments.

Creating fond memories is something we believe in as a youth department and Audacious has historically created many a fond memory.

Audacious takes place this year at Manchester Central Arena, Monday 2 August to Thursday 5 August.