About New Disciples Ministry

About New Disciples Ministry This ministry got started by some friends and myself having dicussions about our church lives. Some of us loved our home churches, but felt that there was something missing from it and some of us just weren’t satisfied with what the modern church is like. You know what I mean don’t you? All too often it seems we’re being handed this prepackaged, ready for mass consumption, "Religion" with every aspect of you worship life and home life planned out for you. And very often this "Religion" means following a set of rules handed to you by man and doesn’t include a personal relationship with God which is what being a Christian is supposed to be about. I came up with an idea. On June 11th of 2008, I created a myspace group called New Diciples. Yes; I left the ’S’ out of disciple. It was an accident at first, but came to have some meaning for us. A while after creating the group, I set up a myspace page for New Diciples. My friend Allen Christian created a very cool layout for us and wrote a blog entry about the missing ’S’. He said it represented the ’Something’ that we all felt was missing from our church lives. It blew me away. I couldn’t believe that somebody else felt the same way and got the hidden meaning like that. So, the original New Diciples were me and Allen, my fiancee Tonya Addair, Allen’s wife Cindy, my niece Rebecca Byrd, Cindy’s brother Michael Matney, or friend Michael Harman who I shared conversations with that inspired me to start New Diciples in the first place, and my friend from high school Shane Craver. We kept the Myspace page and Group going for a few months and added several people to the friends list, but after a while, everybody’s lives got busy and interest and activity in the group fizzled. The group just wasn’t growing anymore and I hadn’t really taken charge and run with it the way I should have. I also started thinking that the misspelling of the name might seem confusing to some people and cliche to others. On November the 12th of 2008, I decided to do a reboot or relaunch of the entire thing. I deleted the group space and the profile and started it all over. I created a new email address, profile, and group all under the name of New Disciples Ministry. I decided that I was gonna take charge and go in a new direction with the ministry because that’s what is was all along whether we realized it in the beginning or not. I also decided that I would take on the burden of running the whole thing mself and if anybody wanted to help along the way that would be great, but I wouldn’t be bothered if anyone didn’t. I started posting lessons on the blog like I would teach in Sunday school and sending out bulletins. I spent hours inviting new friends and then Tonya’s son Zach started using friend trains and helping me add more and more people to our ministry. Thank’s Zach, by the way. Today, we have three chapter’s to our myspace part of the ministry. There’s the profile for New Disciples Ministry that we use to reach out to as many souls as possible, whether they’re saved or lost and try to bring the word of God to them. There’s the Chapter 2 profile we created to bring God’s warriors together; you know, all of us who are dead serious about our walk with God and our battle with the enemy. Also there’s the profile for Hardcore Disciples which is a ministry chapter for Christians who have been shunned by others because they have tatoos or piercings or listen to heavy music. We also have our own website now; www.newdisciplesministry.com . I also have a vision for what I would like the ministry to become in the future. I see us having a worship hall that resembles one of those old medievil style cathedrals where we meet a couple of times a week for teaching, prayer, meals, concerts, and other forms of fellowship; not just Sunday school, then music, then sermon, then the offering and back home until we come back and repeat the same thing in a couple of days. I’ve heard that the church of the first century was a lot closer to the idea that I’ve got than what we see every Wednesday and Sunday. I hope we can make that vision come true in a few years. I don’t know how to raise the funds to do it, but I’m sure that God will make a way. As far as the doctrine of this ministry goes, I try to stick to the only doctrine that matters; that of Jesus Christ. I don’t believe that you should shut yourself off from the world. If you do, you’ll never be able to spread the gospel to anyone. I don’t believe that being a Christian means women wearing skirts to their ankles, sleeves to their wrists, never cutting their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, and so on. God does want you to focus on showing your inner beauty instead of your outer beauty, but that doesn’t mean you have to look plain; just don’t go around like Jezebel. I don’t believe in the pastor running your personal life. If the preacher teaches you the true word of God and you listen, you’re gonna try to live a holy life. I don’t believe in ministers who chose the ministry as a career. It should be a calling from God; not a job! I don’t like it when the man or woman on the pulpit is getting paid a huge salary, provided a Cadillac, and a mansion. They become just like a politician; greedy, corrupt and rotten to the core. I hope I can bring these things forth as I write to all of you through all the chapters of this ministry. Anyway, that’s what New Disciples Ministry is and I hope you will be a part of it for years to come. Pete 2-2-09