Dear Friends,

Welcome to the New Year! We made it through the shortest daylight hour days of the year and are moving rapidly through January. Even though things slowed down just a tiny bit during the holidays, Lisa and I still managed to keep very busy here in Scotland.

As soon as we celebrated New Year’s Day, we were in full swing to prepare for a major event at the Bible college.

Healing is Here with Cecil Paxton

We hosted Cecil and Lisa Paxton at the Bible college last weekend for a Healing is Here event. We expected a large crowd. So we brought in 100 extra chairs and setup our large classroom with as many as we could squeeze in.

For the afternoon of the event there were 128 total people attending, including staff and students. It was our biggest event so far in the history of Charis Dumfries!

We had to ask our second and third year students to give up their chairs and sit out in our break room. Fortunately our team was able to rig up an extra speaker to our sound system in that room during the first break. We are already looking at ideas for a larger venue for Cecil’s time with us next January!

Cecil and Lisa are always a blessing for us every time they come to Scotland. This time was no exception. The event was a resounding success for us. Not only were there many miraculous healings, but we also distributed several application packs to folks interested in attending Charis next year. Plus several folks requested to be added to our Charis Dumfries email list so they can hear about our local guest speaker events in the future.

Audio Book Recording

I mentioned in our last newsletter that I planned to work on recording the audiobook version of my Rejecting Mammon book during the Christmas break. I’m happy to report that I was able to record about half of it during the break.

Unfortunately I got a bit of a head cold and cough towards the end of the break. It wasn’t enough slow me down for most everything I had to do. However, it did make my voice sound a bit croaky. That’s not good for recording audio.

Therefore I shifted gears to another project. 

Sovereignty of God

Since I couldn’t record audio, I wrote another book. One of the most popular articles on our NewCREEations website deals with the sovereignty of God doctrine. I regularly get requests for that article in print format.

I expanded that article and added some additional information and put it into what I call a “short read” book format. The print version is about 50 pages. Here’s some of what it covers:

Power vs. Authority — How the difference between power and authority means God is not controlling everything today.

Multiple Forces at Work — There are many other forces in our world today, so God cannot be in control of everything.

What About Job? — Let’s correct a common misunderstanding of what happens in the book of Job.

Victimhood and Other Problems — This chapter looks at some of the problems the doctrine which says “God is in control” creates for believers.

Identity Problem — The idea that “God is in control” creates a huge identity problem for believers.

What About Romans 9? — This chapter takes a closer look at the primary scriptures those who say “God is in control” build their case upon.

Personal Experience — Finally, I share some of my own personal experience how believing God was in control affected my walk with Jesus compared to the difference today when I no longer believe that.

We just released the book on Amazon and it is doing remarkably well. In fact, as I type this the book is in the #1 spot on Amazon’s Hot New Releases chart for the Adult Christian Education category. That puts it above John Maxwell and Max Lucado!

Let me add that I know many of you are familiar with Andrew Wommack, the founder of Charis Bible College that we work with here in Scotland. Here is what he has to say about the sovereignty of God doctrine, as most believers understand it today:

"I believe this is the worst doctrine in the church today. I know that this is a shocking statement and is near blasphemy to some people, but the way sovereignty is taught today is a real faith killer. The belief that God controls everything that happens to us is one of the devil’s biggest inroads into our lives."

My short read book helps correct this error by clearly laying out the Biblical case why God is not actually in control of everything that happens in our world today. I did my best to make this book easy to understand. I don’t think you should need a theology degree to see the truth.

Hopefully it will be a blessing to you. You can find the paperback version on Amazon when you click here. The Kindle version is available by clicking here.

You can find it on Apple Books by clicking here.

If Amazon or Apple are a good options for you, then you can also find the eBook in a variety of formats on Smashwords by clicking here. I expect to have the book available in the Google Play bookstore very soon.

I pray that the book is a blessing for you.

Looking Forward to the New Year

Here are some of the things we are looking forward to in the next several months:

• Trip to Hungary for Charis European Regional meeting
• Wendell Parr ministering for our Charis Open Day in March
• Outbound mission trip to Highlands/Isle of Lewis Scotland in March
• Outbound mission trip to Finland in May
• In-house graduation in May
• Dumfries graduating class at Grace and Faith in May
• Trip to the States for the annual Directors meeting in Colorado

That’s just part of what we have going on with the Bible College. Plus God has other things in store too! We already see God opening the doors to additional ministry opportunities for us in the coming year. We will share more about those opportunities as they happen.

Abundant Blessings,

Chris & Lisa Cree

P.S. Lisa and I have a great many ministry opportunities this year which will require extra provision from NewCREEations. If you would like to be a part of what God is doing to influence more people for the Kingdom of God through our ministry in Scotland and around the world, please consider becoming a monthly ministry partner or making a one time donation. You can do so here:

Online:

Mail:

NewCREEations Ministries
953 Forest Edge Rd
Woodland Park, CO 80863