Doug Newland

How we met:

Doug was my youth pastor when I was growing up. I remember my parents having him over for dinner when he took the position at Harborside. For a 12 year old who’s whole world revolves around baseball, it was huge that my new youth pastor played ball in college. I was so pumped when Doug and Kerri showed up and I know it was God who brought them there.

Three things I appreciate about Doug:

1. Doug is the reason that I wanted to get involved in ministry. I remember looking up to him when I was in high school and seeing the impact that he had on my life and the lives of my friends and I wanted to take on that role in others lives.

2. I’ve always watched and admired Doug with his wife and how he was with his girls. I haven’t seen them since they were super young but I know that they are lucky and blessed to have the dad that they do and I know that Kerri feels the same.

3. Doug was definitely one of my mentors growing up. He was with me through a whole load of stuff and was a solid source of encouragement as well as a solid pointer to reality when I needed it. I’m very thankful for him and I don’t know if he realizes the amount of lives he has had an impact on.

My favorite memory of Doug:

Again, I have many awesome memories of Doug. I was fortunate to spend a lot of time with him over the span of 6 years or so. We have a lot of good memories and some not so good(shaving his head, which I still claim my innocence, or at least not as guilty as I was made out to be) but I think my favorite memory of Doug was when we were leaving for a week long trip right after Kaylee was born. Doug had a lot going on at the moment. We were actually in the process of loading into the buses. He was in charge of a huge group spread out over two huge buses and we were ready to pull out of the church parking lot when he realized that he lost the picture of Kaylee that he was planning on bringing. I don’t remember exactly but I think she was just born. Doug flipped out and everything was put on hold until the picture was found. Thinking back it reminds me of the parable in Matthew 18 of the man with 100 sheep. When he loses one he leaves the other 99 and goes into the mountains to find the one. He puts it all on hold. Doug is like this. When someone would go astray, he would go out of his way to find out what was up. I remember spending countless lunches with Doug in my high school cafeteria. I thank God for Doug and although we aren’t necessarily serving together I am encouraged to know that there are men like Doug on the front lines of this fight and I can’t wait to worship with him in heaven.