College

Hey Everyone!
Like I said a few weeks ago, I am winding down my time here in Cary and am gearing up for college. I applied to two schools, Cedarville University (Ohio) and Elon University (North Carolina). Thankfully I was accepted to Cedarville. However, after much prayer and really thinking through the decision my family and I came to the conclusion that Cedarville may not be the very best choice for me. The campus was beautiful and the people were great, but I had a little tug on my heart saying that wasn't the place. That left Elon. Well, unfortunately I was put on their Wait List. It might sound bad, but really it's not. That just means I have to wait until mid-June to hear. Elon is definitely my first choice at this point. After visiting the campus last fall, I fell in love with the school. At the time it wasn't my first choice, but after doing more research and praying over the matter, I really felt God leading me to go there. I would just ask you to pray that I will hear that I get accepted into the school come mid-June or even sooner.
A challenge for me is the fact that I have to tell Cedarville yes or no by May 1. So if I say no I loose my spot, and obviously I can't guarantee my own spot at Elon. So please pray for wisdom in the decision making as I start this new phase of my life.

On the church plant side of things, we just got the brand new signage in the mail today with our new logos. I can't wait to unveil them Easter Sunday! Also, our mailers for our Easter service went out this Sunday. Please pray that many will come to our service (or any local, Bible-teaching, church's service) this Easter and hear the Gospel message!

Thanks for your prayers and support.

Guest Band

This Sunday we had a guest band come in and lead worship. They did a phenomenal job. Out of church, they are known as Flowers For Faye (www.flowersforfaye.com). However, at Northwest this Sunday we had them in as our worship band. In case you were wondering how we got them to come, well the lead singer for the band plays bass guitar at Northwest for Sunday AM worship. The congregation loved the change of pace and had a great time. It was fun to change up the routine and see so many people get excited about it.

I have been working with David, our new Administrator at NWCC on a new logo and signage for Northwest. We are rolling out a new look on Easter Sunday this year which we are pretty excited for.

Thank for continuing to read and pray for Northwest. God has done amazing things and I know he will continue.

Winding Down

Happy first day of spring!!! I can't believe it... It has been almost 3 years since I moved to Cary, North Carolina. The time has flown by. I look back and I remember are the great times I've had, the people I've met and the lesson I've learned. It is hard for me to believe that I only have about 3 months left! As soon as summer comes, I am off on wild adventures again and when fall of 2009 rolls around, I won't be coming back to Northwest--I will be in college.

I will miss getting to church before the sun even wakes up just to set-up. I will miss all of the events and planning. But most of all, I will miss all of the people who were there every step of the journey at Northwest. I remember those who dove in and spent countless hours planning an preparing for our very first service in the pre-school with only 40 people. Now look where God has brought us! He has allowed us to grow to over 200 people on a week-to-week basis but even more than numbers, we have seen people grow closer together and ultimately closer to God. Not only were earthly friendships made, many people have decided to develop and commit to an eternal relationship with their Savior, Jesus Christ! PRAISE THE LORD!

This spring, we have a lot planned. I intend to keep you informed on everything that's going on. Please continue to pray that we will see lives changed through the ministry at Northwest!

Meta '09

A local church, Apex Baptist Church (Apex, NC) has an annual event they call Metamorphosis or Meta. It is a weekend geared towards bringing students closer to Christ. The awesome thing about this event is that they invite area churches to come and bring their youth groups. I would guess that between 8-12 churches come with students eager to learn year after year. This year, Northwest was able to be a part of this exciting event.

I could go on and on and write in detail about what went on, but I am going to get to the point. Two young men from our student ministry got saved! It was awesome, because the pastor was simply preaching the Gospel, but as he was doing it, I was praying for these two guys in particular. I found out afterwards that have my church group there was praying for these two guys! GOD IS AWESOME! and PRAYER WORKS!

One of the guys gave his testimony at youth group this past Sunday night. He had grown up in a Christian home, but it had taken him until his sophomore year in high school to realize that he needed a personal relationship with his Savior. As he shared his testimony he expressed how he got saved just in time. A bunch of things happened in his family--mainly his grandfather's death. He shared that he might not have made it through this trial if it wasn't for his "new found strength in the Lord." God is truly awesome and works in amazing ways. I have prayed for him for a while, and I still pray for him. I just didn't understand why God hadn't saved him yet. But God knew when the right time was, and that was at Meta.

Winter Camp 2009

I know it has been several months since I have written anything, but don't worry all has gone well. In fact things have been going so well I have not had any spare time to write. Hopefully I will get back in the swing of things, but we will just have to wait and see.

Yesterday, I got back from Northwest's Second Annual Student Ministries ski trip. That is not the official name. God really blessed the trip. We came back with no injuries other than a couple bruises and scratches from wiping out on the slopes. Apart from the skiing side, God really worked in the lives of many of the students that attended. One student trusted Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior of his life. Many other uncovered dirt that had been bogging them down in their Christian walk. I was challenged as well by what I heard.

I don't have a movie or pictures from the event yet (well, I do have some of me doing a Jonas Brothers lip sync). Anyway, when I get some, I will post them. Feel free to send me emails to keep me accountable when updating this blog. There are tons of great things God is doing in and through Northwest, I hate to keep them a secret.

Fall is Here

Happy Fall Everyone!
It has been a while again since I last wrote, sorry about that. Since I last wrote we had our official ONE year celebration and our 2nd baptism! We also just finished up a series called The Gospel According to YouTube and we began a series called God and Government this past Sunday. We also have a brand new set and lights which is really exciting. I will have to put pictures up of that soon.

Well, I thought I would let you know that things are going great and I am still here. I will hopefully get back into the routine of updating the blog more regularly.

Thanks for reading.

Oh Where, Oh Where Have the Updates been?

Well, I am back from 7 weeks of travel and am ready to give you an update. I have been back to NWCC for 2 weeks and things are going great! Despite the usual summer family vacations and weekend trips to the beach, our attendance has been right under 200 people all summer! That is amazing. I can't wait to see what it will be like when we hit the school year again.

As far as what has been going on with me in the last months, well....The end of May and beginning of June were fully devoted to finishing up school after a somewhat stressful junior year. I learned not to overload with honors and AP classes :). After school left out I immediately hopped on a plane and headed to Beijing, China. 中国，北 京！ I spent three weeks there studying the culture and going site seeing as well as a few other things. I landed at home aand turned right back around within 36 hours to go to my cousin's wedding. We saw fireworks for the 4th of July after the wedding and the next morning I flew from Ohio to Pennsylvania. I spent two weeks in PA doing graphic design and tech work for a missionary agency. After those two weeks were up, my church picked me in PA and took me to a summer camp at Baptist Bible College called Teen Leadership Conference. I spent a week up there and now I am back home. So that has been my crazy summer and that is why I haven't written since May. If you are interested in what I did in China, feel free to read all about it at: http://ryanvet.com/summer08/.

I will be keeping you updated in the next few weeks as we begin to launch all of our fall programs. But for now, I have a sneak preview of our new TV Commercial!!! Yes that is right. A real TV commercial. You are seeing this before our church family does. We will show them on Sunday. Feel free to let us know what you think!