Dear Friends,

The summer is speeding past for Lisa and I. We hope that everything is well in your world despite the ongoing coronavirus situation.

Lisa and I are doing very well. We’re still in what they call “phase 3” of lockdown here in Scotland. It’s been an incredibly busy time for us as we continue to minister to people. We are amazed at how God enables us to truly reach around the world with His goodness, despite the limitations on our ability to travel.

Here is some of what we’ve been up to for the past several weeks.

Brand New Virtual Program

We’re incredibly excited to share about the new Virtual Program we are now approved to offer this coming school year at Charis Dumfries. This is in addition to the Hybrid Program, which we will continue offering as before. 

As you likely know, our Hybrid program provides a mix of self study at home, and live on-campus teaching. Students travel into Dumfries to attend on campus every second Saturday throughout the school year. It works out to a total of 16 trips to our campus for the students.

With our Virtual Program, students will participate in the live Saturday instruction on-line instead of on-campus. Rather than attending on-campus for 16 Saturdays, our Virtual students will only need to make 2 trips to Dumfries. We scheduled two weekend intensives, which will have a Friday evening, all day Saturday, and Sunday morning for in-person instruction.

This opens up our geographical reach considerably because of the greatly reduced travel requirements. We already have applicants from Norway and the Outer Hebrides in Scotland. These are places that require a full day of travel time each way.

School Challenges

In our last newsletter I mentioned the uncertainty of how we would be able to accommodate students in the coming school year. I shared how Scotland is far more tight with the coronavirus restrictions than even England or the rest of the UK are.

At this point it looks like we will not be able to have students on campus on our first day of school in September. The Scottish government is holding to their 2 meter distance requirements. Our facility simply isn’t large enough to accommodate our students within those parameters.

Fortunately, we already have the plans in place for the Virtual Program!

That means all of our students will start out virtually for the start of school this year, similar to how we completed the last school year in May. Then, when the government loosens the requirements, we will be able to bring our Hybrid students back on-campus.

It’s not ideal. But we shouldn’t miss a beat when it comes to discipleship and keeping the learning flowing for the students. Praise God for that!

Expanding Our Team

As you can imagine, there is plenty of work to do as we add this new program to what we have been doing all along. Fortunately we have several of our recent third year graduates who are eager to join our team and help us teach more students.

This is in keeping with the principle of 2 Timothy 2:2, which is the heart of the founder of Charis, Andrew Wommack:

You have heard me teach things that have been confirmed by many reliable witnesses. Now teach these truths to other trustworthy people who will be able to pass them on to others.— 2 Timothy 2:2 (NLT)

Our existing team is looking forward to training up these new members of our team so that we can all minister to even more students!

Much Needed Down Time

As you know, we were unable to make our annual trip to the States this summer. We normally head to Colorado for meetings and for personal business at least once per year. Lisa and I also build in some down time on those annual trips to America too.

Since that didn’t happen this year, Lisa and I took a much needed break last week and drove up to the Highlands to get away for a few days. Our last real break was in February when we had a couple days to enjoy Budapest before attending a few days of meetings there. We were ready for a break!

The photos you see throughout this newsletter are from that trip. You already know how much Lisa likes cows. Heilan coos (or Highland cows) are her favorite. You can probably see why.

For my part, I enjoyed driving and walking through the beautiful scenery with Lisa. We dipped our toes in the ocean on both the West and East Coasts of Scotland on our trip. 

We were grateful for the break. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you need some down time until you finally get it!

Ministry Opportunities

I mentioned God is enabling us to reach around the world. One example of that is that we had an opportunity to minister at Redeemer’s Heart Church in Colorado Springs. Chris was able to share with the church via Zoom on two Sundays.

Chris also had the honor of sharing on one of the daily live Bible studies out of the main Colorado campus for Charis. You can watch it on YouTube here. If you prefer, you can watch it on Facebook here.

This is in addition to all the ways we continue to minister to folks around the world such as our free Daily Reflections email devotional that we send out every morning. We regularly receive feedback from our subscribers about how much that devotional blesses them. Why not consider subscribing to receive that blessing? You can signup to get it here.

Plus, we also host our own live Bible Study for Charis Dumfries on Facebook every Tuesday afternoon, UK time. You can check them out here.

More Video Equipment

The beauty of technology is that we can disciple more people from greater distances for far less money than ever before in the history of mankind. But all this ministry still isn’t without real costs, as I’m sure you can appreciate.

Since the start of the coronavirus challenges in March, NewCREEations has invested about $3,000 in video and other equipment to improve our ability to disciple people via the internet. We will be making this gear available for use in Charis Dumfries free of charge. 

That has only been possible because of the faithfulness of those who partner financially with NewCREEations.

We are looking to purchase two television screens for use in Charis Dumfries in the new Virtual Program. These will help greatly with the interaction between our on-campus and on-line students, who will be attending the same classes together. We believe we can get these two TVs, along with the necessary cables and mounting brackets/stands for between $750 - $1,000.

If you would like to support the work we are doing to make disciples in Scotland and beyond by donating to this help with this expense, please click the button below.

As I close out this newsletter, I want to especially thank all those who partner and donate to NewCREEations already. We could not accomplish all that God has us doing without your support. Your generous faithfulness during uncertain times is an incredible testimony to God’s goodness in your lives. Thank you again for your love, friendship, prayers and faithful financial support. We are eternally grateful!

Abundant Blessings,

Chris & Lisa Cree

P.S.

Since you are one of our email subscribers (and you also read all the way down to the end of the newsletter), Lisa and I would like to bless you by giving you a free copy of the eBook version of Rejecting Mammon. To get it, click here and then change out the $9.00 in the “Set Your Donation” field to $0. Next, click the “Add to Cart” button and complete the transaction in our e-commerce cart to access the download link for free. We pray you are blessed by learning these Kingdom ways as much as we were when we learned them!

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NewCREEations Ministries
953 Forest Edge Rd
Woodland Park, CO 80863