New Life Church - Downtown Little Rock

This week is all about global and local missions. Reaching out to the lost is core to God’s heart and who we are at New Life Church. So this week we get to highlight a lot of different missions in and around our church and meet some of our friends who are making a huge difference in people's lives. As you hear about these opportunities, we challenge you to pray if God is calling you to sow into th...

God has chosen to limit the effectiveness of his church by the faithfulness of his people. The effectiveness of God’s church is limited by the faithfulness of his people. It takes time for us to grow and learn how to work how he does and become effective workers alongside him but we believe one thing God wants to develop in you is a heart of generosity. An improper understanding of generosity plac...

There is a generation that is suffering and walking away from faith in droves. But what if this is largely not because of decisions they have made and are making but because of the decisions and the faith of those who went before them. We are in the midst of a time in History where we need to see a comeback and we must lead from a place of being planted in community and in the word.  “The righteou...

When it comes to vision in the Home, there are so many areas to start thinking and dreaming about: What could be better in my family? What could be better in my marriage? What goals do we have? What dreams do we have? God can transform your family from where it is today to where he designed it to be but it takes being intentional with leading our families from the word and the Holy Spirit’s direct...

When Jesus speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well, we can only imagine the social and emotional tensions in play. This woman meets a man she assumes will approach her with judgment from her social status or from the shame of her past - just as we all have personal and generational challenges. But instead of meeting judgment she meets the Messiah she has been waiting for and Jesus offers grace a...

Have you ever had a competing vision of what is right or wrong with your boss before? What about with God? In Jonah chapter 4 we see Jonah struggling with a different vision of good that is not theological, but ideological. The truth is, Jonah is motivated by what is good for Jonah and God is motivated by what is good for all of his creation. “Then God said to Jonah, ‘Is it right for you to be ang...

God is determined to accomplish his purposes through us so that his Justice and mercy will cover the earth like a flood. Still, despite hearing about the mercy characteristics of God, there are many of us who don’t know this God. We flee wrath but we never worship under mercy. It is his pure and true justice as a loving father that leads us back to him and allows him to bring us fully into his res...

The life of a Christian is not all blessings - but it's a call to fight our flesh and follow our heavenly father's call for our life. In this journey we will encounter the 5 Ps of a Christian life: Pull, Pursuit, Pleasure, Pain, and Peace. " One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, and Dav...

We need a plan for becoming like Jesus. Though we can’t earn God’s free grace, the process of growth to becoming a truly transformed disciple will cost you. But the gain is so much greater than the cost. Where are you wanting to grow? Marriage? Raising kids? Single, looking for a healthy place to make friends? Prayer life? What do we gain? We get to become like Jesus. We believe God’s plan for us...

In chapter 2 we get to experience Jonah’s physical, emotional, and spiritual low. This is certainly something we can all relate to – living in the brokenness from our choices and the choices of those around us. But at his lowest moment – even as he had been running from God – we see Jonah acknowledge the ultimate grace of his savior as he proclaims, “Salvation comes from the Lord.” “The engulfing...

Jonah isn’t a story about the big fish, this is the story about a gracious God. God is using two of the most extreme examples in human history of depravity and religiosity to teach us something about his own heart and our very nature. So here is the question the book of Jonah causes us to wrestle with: Do we love God’s mercy? Do we really? “‘Throw me into the sea,’ Jonah said, ‘and it will become...

In our journey through Colossians, Paul takes aim at setting a vision for what Biblical family should look like. Paul is not defining specifics of gender roles, but pointing to our intended design. God has made us as men and women equal and at the same time distinct in the way we function individually and together. God has a distinct vision for the order of the Christian household that is helpful...

What is our culture's view of a secure identity and how is Jesus seeking to re-form our identity? God has distinct characteristics he wants to develop in the life of each believer and also in his people, The Church. Our purpose is to be an outpost of grace, and community of growth. To be a visual representation of a new way to live, not shackled by guilt and shame, but freed by the love of Jesus. ...

We have been sold a pack of lies about what it means to be human. In this week's reading from Colossians 2, Paul is teaching us: We don’t have to let brokenness set our lens for reality. There is a greater reality than what we’ve seen. And we are to “fix our eyes on the reality of heaven.” In that reality we can put our old life to death and step in to our new nature. " Since you have been raised...

Jesus Christ is the ultimate reality. Everything points to him. Our salvation and our freedom is found in him. All other religious philosophies or ascetic practices are merely shadows. They cannot save us or transform us. Only Christ, our reality, can do that. We don’t have time to chase shadows, because the people around us need us to be true followers of Jesus so we can bring light into their da...

As we dive into a conversation between God and Jeremiah, God says He is both the God who is near and the God who is far away. God loves to come into our life and bring his blessings, but he also calls us out to find him. It is only in intentional seeking the far away God outside our own wants, needs, and desires that you find him and true abundant life. “Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord,...

God’s not calling you to a life of ease and comfort, but to become a servant. In our humility in Christ we become great. In becoming a slave to Christ, we become free. From the book of Matthew, Coach Fitz encourages us to empty ourselves, trust God as we leave our comfort zone, and let him fill us up to go out. “But Jesus called them over and said, ‘You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominat...

Jesus did what we couldn’t do and still can’t do on our own. He came so that we would be complete in him, receive the power to walk in his ways, and live a life of overflowing in thankfulness so we have more than enough as we go out and share his good news with the world. “When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our...

In prayer we are actually joining in with God’s redemptive work as we petition him to right the wrongs of the world through passionate persistent pleas for justice. Just like with the persistence of the widow here in Luke and and Moses in Numbers - God is telling us that our persistence can move the heart of God and bring justice in our difficult situations. This week is a reminder that we’re call...

Though our sin alienated us from God, the mystery of God’s plan for our redemption is revealed in Christ only costing us to put our faith and hope in him to save us. Christ has bought back what we lost in sin and he came to redeem our strength, our energy, and to build us into the person he made us to be. “Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavio...

For the Colossians, teachers had come into the young church and began to teach that Jesus was the beginning of your salvation but he cannot bring it to completion. Paul’s intention in Colossians 1:15-20 is to challenge that directly and to show that Christ is supreme over all creation, over the Church, and he is sufficient to heal all that is broken.  " For God in all his fullness was pleased to l...

Pastor Fitz shares on the importance of staying tuned in to God by consistency in the word, relationship, and letting God be our source. This is a challenge to lean in to your faith this summer and not to tune out. Stay present with God, let him challenge you, and see the results of your connection with him. "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal...

It can be difficult at times to be grateful for the gospel. It is easy to lose sight of what God has done for us. Ingratitude comes when we have ignorance of the worth of the gift we’ve been given but thankfulness is an overflow of our understanding of the incredible work of Jesus on our behalf. This week's challenge from Colossians is a call to expand our vision of what God had done and is doing,...

God wants to equip us by his power to live with patience and endurance. We don’t have to rely on our own strength to get through the trails of everyday life. We have been given strength by the power of God through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit empowers and gives us strength to live and do what God has set out for us because it’s not the independent self who is strong in the kingdom of God but t...

God’s always has something better, something deeper, something richer in store for you as you continue to grow in him. What is it for which God has laid hold of you? For us, his Church, to know and accomplish God’s will for our life  we must remain humble before him, refuse the invitation to our old life, reprogram the way we think, and then we can rest in the result.   “…we have not ceased to pra...