Clayton Bell | Online

Son. Husband. Father. Planter.

Archive for category Trinity New Life Church

More Tim Keller Awesomeness

Nov 13

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Church Planting, Cultural Commentary, Leadership, Resources, Spiritual Insights, Trinity New Life Church | 2 Comments

keller200You know I love me some Tim Keller. Man’s got game. Smarts. Insight. Fruit. Hair.

Well, three of four ain’t bad.

His church in NYC, Redeemer, is currently casting the vision for their next ten years. Here’s how they described the RENEW campaign:

By the end of this next decade the vision is to have three strong congregations serving a total of 9,000-10,000 people, worshipping at 7-9 locations and 12 or more services around the city, drawing many more un-churched people into a relationship with God, and with a reputation for serving and loving those in the city who don’t share our beliefs as well as loving those who do.
Keller’s been preaching a series of messages tying a key theme of the Christian life with hope and showing how it should be lived out in the city. The sermons are available for free HERE during the campaign.
Download them. Listen to them. Listen them again. You’re welcome.

How to get a TNLC Shirt

Sep 29

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Church Planting, Leadership, Resources, Trinity New Life Church | No Comments

I just posted over on the Trinity New Life Church blog how you can get one of our hot, dead-sexy church shirts.

Hop on over and get yours…

Serving Mitchell, serving the city

Sep 11

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church Planting, Cultural Commentary, Trinity New Life Church | No Comments

(Originally posted on the Trinity New Life Church news blog)

As many of you know, I’m working with the JW Mitchell high school football team as the chaplain. In addition to spending time with the team and coaches doing leadership training and bible studies, our church will also be sponsoring their Players of the Week award. Here are your winners from the week 1 victory over River Ridge.

Congrats to (L to R):

Mitchell-week-1

  • Defensive player of the game Hunter McIntosh
  • Offensive player of the game Ricky Trinidad
  • Special Teams player of the game Codi Folsom

Pray for victory this week against Ridgewood!

Where will you be November 8?

Sep 10

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Church Planting, Leadership, Resources, Trinity New Life Church | 1 Comment

Because Trinity New Life Church will be at the James P. Gills YMCA!

YMCA

November 8th is the first preview service for Trinity New Life Church, and it’s official that it will be held at the YMCA. We’ve been in talks for a while now to rent the facility, but today was the day I signed on the dotted line.

We couldn’t be happier about partnering with the YMCA. Perfect people, perfect location. They’re a first-rate organization, a key fixture in the community, and their facility is wonderfully situated to host the entire family on a Sunday morning. Plus, the potential to partner with their community activities helps us to fulfill the “Serve the City” element of our mission.

So consider this your first (but not last) official invitation to the first service of Trinity New Life Church, November 8th, at 11:15 a.m., at the James P. Gills YMCA.

See you there!

Church planters and picket fences

Sep 2

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church, Church Planting, Leadership, Trinity New Life Church | 4 Comments

Picket

As a church planter, I’ll meet with just about anyone. I joke that I’ll shake every baby and kiss every hand I come in contact with. Don’t worry, I know I’m not that funny.

One of the great parts of my job is the opportunity to connect with local pastors and church planters, and it’s been incredibly refreshing to do so.

You see, I’ve met with pastor, after pastor, after pastor and none of them has been territorial. In fact, they’ve all been quite the opposite. Each one of them is encouraging, supportive and kingdom-minded. Each has offered their support and help. One even asked me to come share about our church plant so they could take up an offering for us. How cool is that!?

I’m excited to be planting a church around so many others who aren’t building picket fences to separate churches, but are reaching out to offer a helping hand. It’s almost like God intended things to work this way or something…

“May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me.” – John 17:23

The church universal FTW.

Can there ever be a good animated GIF?

Sep 1

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church Planting, Resources, Trinity New Life Church | 1 Comment

YES! Especially when you’re helping us promote Trinity New Life Church!

The most despised element of web design, the animated GIF, can be redeemed for the Kingdom of God with your help. If you have a website or blog, please consider placing this little bit code somewhere on the site, probably in the widget section.

<a href=”http://www.Trinitynewlife.com”><img title=”Animated-GIF” src=”http://trinitynewlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Animated-GIF.gif” alt=”Animated-GIF” width=”200″ height=”300″ /></a>

Hit publish and this little beauty will now be a part of your website!

Animated-GIF

If you have any tech trouble, let me know and I’ll do my best to help.

Are you pimping Trinity New Life Church on your website? Leave us a comment and let us know!

The psychic answer to prayer

Aug 31

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church Planting, Leadership, Spiritual Insights, Trinity New Life Church | 7 Comments

cash

Weeks ago we began talks with a local organization to rent their facilities for Sunday church services. We prayed God would provide a favorable offer, since as a church plant we have a very limited budget. He did, but that’s not the point of this story…

Right after beginning talks with the organization, I felt God stirring me to pray for The Landlord to come along. This landlord wasn’t the person we’d be dealing with in literally renting the facility, but was someone who would offer to pay for our entire first rental contract. I just knew The Landlord was out there, and prayed for him/her to help us launch this great work of God. But since I didn’t know what the rental price was yet, I hadn’t spent too much time praying for him/her yet.

This week we received the final number on the rental contact, and I conveyed my desire to pursue the opportunity with the board of our church plant. The moment I hung up the phone with the board members, I received an IM from The Landlord. This person agreed to pay our entire first rental contract. I’d barely prayed for them, but God knew even before we’d asked Him!

We plant, we water, we pray, we cultivate…but no one is more responsible and more passionate about building the church than God. He’s got bigger plans for Trinity New Life Church than I could even imagine.

I’m just glad He’s let me come along for the ride. How about you?

So you want to plant a church…

Aug 18

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church Planting, Leadership, Spiritual Insights, Trinity New Life Church | 3 Comments

Hey, did you know I’ve been working on planting a church? It’s called Trinity New Life Church, located in the greater Tampa Bay area. I’m three weeks in, and I’m already done with most of the hard stuff.

Planting a church is SUPER easy. It doesn’t take that much time away from your family, doesn’t require much faith, and really doesn’t involve raising any money. There’s lots of people around you who are 110% committed to the vision, everyone who says they want to be involved stays involved, and you’re always 100% sure of what you’re doing.

Planting a church is basically drinking 600-calorie coffee drinks on a daily basis, not gaining any weight, and discussing ideas about how to impact people without talking to any of them. 45% of church planting is wearing jeans and a graphic t-shirt while preaching to a crowd, another 45% is wearing an embroidered long-sleeve button down shirt and jeans while preaching to a crowd. 10% is prayer and effort.

Yeah, so only the first two sentences of this are true. Church planting isn’t like that at all.

I’m going to make a concerted effort to get back on the blogging train, though the focus of the blog may be turning from less cultural commentary to more spiritual insights and church planting reflections. I know that may not apply to some of the readers, but hopefully you’ll still get a kick out of it.

Oh, and if you ever have any questions about church planting, please don’t hesitate to ask. We’re all in this together!

The new look of Trinity New Life Church

Aug 11

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church Planting, Trinity New Life Church | No Comments

The brand-new logo for TNLC just premiered on the Trinity New Life Church blog (and Facebook and Twitter).

Check out the new hotness!

TNLC Updates

Aug 10

Posted by Clayton Bell in Church Planting, Trinity New Life Church | No Comments

If you’re only subscribed to my RSS feed, you may be missing out on the praise and prayer updates for Trinity New Life Church. Being the nice guy that I am, I’ll go ahead and link that up for you.

I know, I know, you’re welcome. :-)