Sunday, May 3rd, Pastor Gary shared about the spiritual anatomy of a Christian in two sessions, one before worship service and one after. It was an exciting and informative time as the NorthStar family began to get acquainted with Pastor Gary and the unique way God has gifted him to share the message of salvation through Christ. A special thanks to Mountain Lakes Bible Church for letting us borrow some of your childcare workers for this event!

2nd Annual NorthStar Variety Show

We had a wonderful celebration of Resurrection Sunday! By the best count we could come up with there were 111 people in attendance. Our nursery, preschool and children's classes were running at full steam. Even more important than the crowd or the numbers, we had a great time of worship. There is nothing better than God's people (sinners saved by grace) joining together in praising Jesus and proclaiming his goodness and strength. If you were one of our guests on Sunday, thank you for being with us. It was very encouraging to see each of you there. We hope you feel welcome to come back and be a part of what God is doing in our church and in this area.

Some of the leaders of the women's ministry at NorthStar Church felt God calling them to serve some women in need. They decided to do something totally unexpected--a spa party for homeless women. This past weekend this unconventional ministry idea led to several women in our church going to Anna Ogden Hall to put on a complete spa party complete with footspas, gift bags and a chocolate fountain. We hope to have a complete, detailed description of this event soon along with some pictures.

NorthStar's Pastor Search Team along with the entire congregation of NorthStar Church is proud to announce the calling of Pastor Gary Brown to be the new lead pastor of NorthStar Church. Pastor Gary came on March 15 to preach in view of a call. The following Sunday our church members accepted the search team's reccomendation to call Gary and his wife Cindy to come be a part of what God is doing at NorthStar!

Below is a letter from Pastor Gary:

Greetings to Our New North Star Family and Our Friends in Northern Idaho!

My wife, Cindy, and I are ecstatic to be moving to Coeur d’Alene as the pastor of North Star Church! We can’t wait to meet everyone in the church family and the community as a whole. Before we visited the area, we found pictures of CDA on the internet, and we had many phone and video conversations with the Pastor Search Team. So we knew coming in that the area was beautiful and the people were warm and friendly.

But nothing could prepare Cindy and me for the actual visit. When we stepped off the plane in Spokane we met the first of what would be dozens of gracious and kind people. When we drove into Idaho and eventually CDA, we were treated to one visual wonder after another. As helpful as the pictures, calls and video conferences were, these tools of technology proved to be only a shadow of the real thing!

It was with great pleasure and an overwhelming sense of God’s calling in our lives that Cindy and I accepted God’s and North Star’s call to come to North Idaho as Pastor. We have every confidence that Christ is pleased and will pour out His blessings on us all. We are thrilled to join the members of North Star and our sister churches as we reach Northern Idaho for Christ!

When you drop by for a Sunday morning visit it will not take you long to conclude that I am not from Idaho. Cindy and I are life-long Southerners from the Great state of Georgia. But do not be mistaken, I have participated in many ministry projects in the Inland Northwest over the years. It has been my prayer for years, for God to open a door for ministry somewhere in this area permanently. But honestly, I thought it would never happen…”O ye of little faith!”

Approximately two months ago I received my first contact from Doug Thompson, the Chair of the Pastor Search Team for North Star and my heart was smitten! I want to thank Doug, the Pastor Search Team, Tom Magee, Bennett Sanderson and the entire North Star family for your heart for God and your willingness to stay diligent in this spiritual journey that has led to this moment.

Cindy and I are looking forward to a long and fruitful ministry together. Ahead, there will times of trials and times of celebration! But in all things it is our prayer that together we will as one body, with one voice, one mind and one heart glorify God in all we say and do; may the people of North Idaho clearly see Christ living in and through us. May their hearts be stirred and may they turn to and receive His Life!

With a Heart Full of His Grace and Love,

Pastor Gary Brown

Galatians 2:20

PS My first Sunday at North Star is April 26^th. Come and worship with us; I would love to meet you!

We've had a week of rains and slightly warmer temperatures. Our mountain of snow at the end of our parking lot is slowly turning into a mountain of plowed up gravel. Our temporary mailbox (put in place because our regular mailbox has been unaccessable since December) now appears to be in the middle of our driveway. Before, it appeared to be at the very edge because of snow and ice. Unfortunately, the slight upturn in the weather seems to have caused a massive outbreak of colds and flu throughout our area. Sunday we were missing 15% or more of our regular attenders due to sickness.

Those of us who remain healthy were there to witness the ordination of two new elder/overseers at NorthStar. Rich and Ron were nominated by the congregation, approved by the Pastoral Support Team and affirmed by the vote of consent of the congregation. Hey, we're just following the by-laws! In any case we strongly believe that God was in control of this selection process. And so yesterday we recognized God's calling in the lives of these two men and their families.

Saturday night NorthStar had its first ever ping pong tournament. It was a well-played tournament with eight athletes participating. The winner was Rich, who came back after suffering a loss in the first round. In second was Sean who played valiantly but just couldn't bring himself to embarrass his father. In third place was Larent (forgive my spelling!), our new friend, who found out about the tournament by doing and internet search for "ping pong in Coeur d'Alene." Those who were out of the tournament early weren't phased by the defeat. They simply joined some spectators in a rousing game of Scrabble that tested the boundaries of the English language.

Thank you, to everyone who participated in this event. Start practicing now for the next tournament! Who knows when that will be.

The Ladies gathered for a Christmas party where they made wreaths and had a sock exchange. A great time was had by all. Dec. 21 we will have our annual Carols, Candles, and Communion service on Sunday morning. Thanks for all of your prayers as we go into a new year. We are very excited about all that God is going to do through NorthStar in 2009!

We have also been blessed to meet Carol Cruise and Wendy Miller. Carol is walking around the perimeter of the country praying over every mile of our borders. She and Wendy, her assistant, need a place to stay during their travel through our part of the country, so we've helped them out. You can find more about Carol's mission at Faithwalk.net.

This weekend the Sandersons and the Magees are going to the NorthWest Missionary Connection hosted by the North American Mission Board (NAMB). They will be traveling to Seattle Thursday through Saturday to learn about NAMB's newest strategies and connect with other ministers throughout the Northwest.

Thanks for all your prayers!

This summer a team from NorthStar put together our first ever off-site Backyard Bible Club. We had a great time working with the kids at Children's Village. We had songs, crafts, stories, games and crafts. The children were very appreciative. They didn't want us to leave, and we didn't want to leave them. If you are interested in volunteering with the kids at Children's Village or in helping with future BBC's please let us know.

As soon as we get our hands on them we will post some pictures of our church members. For now you can check out some pictures at Life in the Big Potato.

This week one of our youth is attending Centrifuge. We cannot wait to hear what God does in her life. And also pray for our upcoming Back Yard Bible Club in a couple of weeks.

May has been a busy month. We've had mother's day and communion, and we're gearing up for summer time. Our pastor search team is diligently seeking the man God would have lead our church and I have been preaching about the Life of Jesus. Good subject, don't you think?

We're trying something new for NorthStar this summer. We're having Dinner and Prayer each Wednesday night. That's where we'll come together for an evening meal then have a prayer service to lift up our church, our community, our nation, and our world. I don't know what will happen with this time, but I am very excited about it.

We're also trying something new when it comes to VBS. We're stepping out from the traditional "in-house" vacation Bible School to try putting together some teams that can do Backyard Bible Clubs. That means we want to serve children and families who would not normally come to our facility for VBS. I don't think many of our church members have ever done anything like this before. There are a lot of questions about how to pull this off. Please pray that God would lead us all the way!

Finally, please continue to pray for our preparations for Ironman. We have a very large team coming to serve during Ironman. Please pray that we will find transportation and get all their volunteer work coordinated in time.

Since NorthStar began we've wanted it to be a place where we celebrate what is great about our community. We also want to foster community by focusing ministry around things people already enjoy doing. The Beast Feast has been our annual service to the men of our community--an opportunity for those who hunt, fish or... well those who just like to eat meat, to get together and enjoy a great time of food, prizes, and fellowship along with a Christian perspective from an experienced outdoors-man.

This year's Beast Feast went very well. We had right around 100 men. We had a little smaller meeting place this year so that number was just right. The food was amazing, of course. Jim Grassi shared on a somewhat controversial topic especially in these parts. The advantages and disadvantages of hunting "high fence" or privately managed areas. Most people stuck around to hear him out, and in the end Jim shared about how hunting had taught him about God's character.

There were many new faces this year. Please pray that God will continue to use this event to his glory through relationships formed and ideas introduced. This was a big undertaking for our church. Thank you to everyone who helped!

If you are interested in visiting NorthStar, March would be a great time. Check out our upcoming events.

Also make sure to check out pictures from the event.

In spite of the weather our attendance has held strong and we are looking forward to some big events in the life of NorthStar. We have the Beast Feast, a choir production and Easter Sunday in the month ahead. Then it won't be too long before Summer!

Also, our prayers go out to those affected by the recent storms across the South. Union University is Tom and Fondra's Alma Matter. We hope everyone recovers quickly from this disaster, and we pray God is glorified even in the face of this tragedy.