The NewDay Creed

It's not about me.
I give myself freely and totally to God.
That I may be used for the building of God's kingdom,
For the care of God's world.
To love God's Children,
All of God's Children.
-Even those who are not like me
-Even those who do not like me
That God's kingdom might become real
And that I might be blessed
And be made complete.


My dad wrote this creed. It has been the basic belief statement for my church NewDay. We have been up and running for just over five years now. I try to live my life by this creed... but sometimes I epically fail lol. This creed reminds me that even on the crappiest days I have had worse, and just because I am having a bad day, doesn't mean I have to make someone else's worse.

FUMC (First United Methodist Church) in Sioux falls used to be my second home. The only place I hadn't been in that church was the roof. I grew up going to that church ever Wednesday and Sunday for 12 years. Can you imagine walking into a church and not knowing who you can trust? If I said anything to the wrong person they could use that against my dad. That's why I like the part about people who don't like you in the creed.
As I mentioned before we started NewDay about five years ago. Even after all this time, FUMC still blames my dad for all of their problems. They didn't meet their budget for this year and apparently it's our fault. Honestly they have the guy who gave all that money to Sioux Valley and made them change their name to Sandford going to their church. They should just have him bail them out. Anyway, during the first year of NewDay they would send people to see how many people where coming to our church. I would watch these people, people who had been in my life since I was three, drive into the parking lot of the park we where having church at and then drive out supposedly to FUMC. I went back to a youth meeting one time. Our youth group activity was over and some of my friends wanted to go checkout what FUMC was doing. So we went to their youth group. The leader had us go around the room and talk about the new church and why we had left. I was insulted. It was kinda obvious that she just wanted information that she could present at the next staff meeting. Sadly, Gwen was treated the same way as my dad. She later apologized to my family and is now living in Texas.

My goal in life is to follow this creed. Which means putting others first and not freaking out about unimportant things. Getting my priorities straight has taken a little longer than I thought but I think I'm back on track :)