Today is Vision Sunday and so this will feel quite a bit different than a normal Sunday here at Newark Naz. I would like you to take the cards out that you were given this morning when you came in. If you don’t have them we have them available in a larger version here on the platform. There are symbols on each one that will help you remember what our vision is all about.
There are three elements that make up the vision of how we do ministry. They are Celebration, Community and Call. We believe and teach that to be a fully devoted follower of Christ you will have all three of these elements in your life. This morning we are going to give you as many of the details as we can of what we believe the future needs to look like for our church.
Each week Brian Redman leads us in worship in our Sunday Celebration service and I have asked him to share a some thoughts with you about celebration.
Brian:
Each week the Worship Design Team meets on Tuesdays to design our Celebrations for Sunday mornings. Through prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we try to create an atmosphere that leads us through a worship experience…where each of us participates in authentic worship.
I absolutely enjoy our celebrations each Sunday. God has given me a passion to really worship Him and to lead people do the same.
But if you’re like me…it hasn’t always been easy to genuinely worship God with a sense of freedom and abandon and a sense of awe. In fact, it’s only been in the last few years where I feel that God has helped me to understand what it means to truly worship Him. And although I’m certainly not in expert on the subject of worship, I just want to share a couple of insights that has helped me to grow as a worshipper.
1 I need to have a relationship with God. In other words, I have to know Him as my Savior, the One who has forgiven my sins.
2 I need to have a heart for God and a heart for things about God. To do this, I have to spend time daily with Him. This can be a difficult one.
3 Need to have a heart of surrender…a heart that listens and obeys God’s spirit as He calls. It’s living it out 24/7
4 Be who you are!!! Be sincere…honest…vulnerable.
John 4:23 & 24
But the time is coming--it has, in fact, come--when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for…those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."
A lot of words to hear at one time…but the key phrases are ↑
I love God with everything in me. I love music. I love being together in this place. I love to feel things deeply…but when it came to expressing my worship in a passionate way (my true self) I felt so stifled. But God has given me a freedom to worship and experience Him in a real way…and there’s a whole story that I don’t have time to tell you this morning. But I want to encourage each one of you to pursue God with a heart that’s hungry for Him. To become authentic worshippers who want the things of God more than the things that we want for ourselves. To pursue God’s presence and obey His Spirit.
I believe when we come to this place, that true worship can be experienced…and that’s my prayer for everyone as we gather together each Sunday to celebrate God and His glory.
Wes:
Now I would like you to look at the back of your cards. The celebration card to be exact. The question that we obviously need to answer is where are we going to have this celebration service in the future.
About a year ago when our attendance began to exceed a comfortable level for this facility especially in the 10:00 service there was a terrible wrestling match that began inside of me. Pastors in today’s church climate have been almost been saturated with the thought that bigger is better and if bigger is happening in your church you need to do everything you can to not lose the “big Mo,” as one church growth expert of the past has worded it. Momentum is everything, many of us have been taught. Do whatever is necessary to preserve momentum. I have watched as many churches have taken this advice and launched into building programs only to find that the unwritten theory, “if you build it they will come,” is truly just a good plot line for a movie. I have watched them shift their emphasis from mission and ministry to mortgages and building funds. This is not true in every case but this is what I was wrestling with.
From day one of my being here I have been drawn to try to engage the community that our church is a part of. Personally, I believe we are responsible to at least make a good effort to touch our own church neighborhood with the Message. So the big question has been to leave or not to leave.
We have explored many different options. From the former Big Bear building on Twenty-First Street to the empty Scott lumber building to pieces of property that we could build on. None of these options felt right for now.
The big conclusion for the present is that we have been strategically located here for a reason and we are going to stay in this neighborhood. How do we do that when we continue to grow? Good question, let me give you some direction and answer that question.
To stay here is not a cheap option. It is much less expensive then if we were to move completely to another location but there are things we need to do to enable us to have effective ministry here. This includes the acquiring of a couple of additional buildings in close proximity to the church to do be able to expand our ministry.
We will in the next few days launch a capital campaign. This campaign will cover the cost of finishing the reconstruction of this property as well as allowing us to purchase at least two additional structures. While I cannot take the time this morning to give you precise details we will keep you informed about this over the next few Sundays. We are going to need between six and seven hundred thousand dollars to complete this campaign and do the things that are critical to us staying here.
I will tell you that when this money is raised we will finish putting windows in this building, pave the parking lots, address drainage problems that will allow us to finish rooms in the basement that currently take on water during heavy rains, raise the sound booth into a balcony and many other exciting things that desperately need to happen. Down the road who knows what God will lead us to do. I still have in my heart the building down the street that I believe that we will one day be using for ministry. The current owners don’t see it yet but they will.
All of these things are important because we are staying here to minister to a neighborhood that needs us. Making the functional and aesthetic changes to our building will make a much needed statement to our community. We will raise the value of homes around us as we clean up our own property.
There is a very important reason that I am not worried about growth and getting bigger. We will, I believe continue to grow. We are prepared if necessary to expand to a Saturday evening service later this fall or next year. The reason I am not concerning with trying to get bigger is that we have a critical need to stop where we are and address some major spiritual issues.
We own the fact, as a leadership team, that while we have grown as a church numerically we have to address the issue of spiritual transformation. Spiritual transformation or growth will not happen by just attending a Sunday morning celebration. We are going to take the needed time to focus on putting the structures in place that will promote the spiritual transformation of the body. Tevis Austin is our Executive Pastor. He is responsible for day to day operations, staff development and also will share in the teaching and preaching that we do in the future. I have asked him to share the vision for Community. After a time of worship and celebration, he is going to come and share this part of the vision for us.
Community – “We are reaching in.”
Jesus made it clear in Matthew 28 that our mission is to go and make disciples. Therefore, Newark Naz is more than a great Celebration on Sunday mornings. We are more than “upward,” we are also about reaching inward and encouraging one another towards spiritual transformation - making disciples – we are about leading people into a growing relationship with Christ. In order for real spiritual transformation to take place, you need more than just Celebration. Celebration is a very meaningful way to worship God, but it is an entry point for new people. Just because you attend something doesn’t mean you are growing spiritually. You will never grow to spiritual maturity just by attending Celebration.
Are we saying that you can’t just go to Celebration and be a Christian? You can come to Celebration, get up on Monday, dress yourself, brush your teeth, go to work, make some money, have a family, and survive life. But God’s way isn’t for you to survive spiritually. His way is for you to thrive spiritually.
We don’t assume everyone who attends believes, or even knows the Bible. We do assume everyone who comes through our doors is open to exploring the Bible, and we do expect everyone who is around our community for any length of time to be growing spiritually.
Illustration: Kind of like going to gas station and just sitting. Just because go to gas station doesn’t mean I’m getting filled. Doesn’t mean things are being checked underneath the hood. I’ve got to do something. *You must make the effort to grow and thrive spiritually.
Hebrews 10:23-24Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess…And let us consider how we may spur one another (encourage one another) on toward love and good deeds.
None of us have arrived in our spiritual journey. We need each other to spur one another, to encourage and support each other on in our spiritual journey.
People long for community. We crave authentic, genuine, transparent relationships. We want to be connected to others. We are able to make it through hard times, survive conflicts, and overcome life’s challenges in community. But apart from community, we can lose faith, and life can seem to fall apart. That is why community is so important. That is why the atmosphere we try to create here from the very first time a person comes here is so important. That is why our “connect ministries” is so important – people who are helping in parking lot, greeters, helping to get coffee and refreshments ready, ushers, people whose main responsibility is to connect with people and care.
We are committed to be a real place where real people are able to share faults and weaknesses and not fake it - where people do life together, where people are committed to knowing others and being known, to loving others and being loved, to serving others and being served.
We experience spiritual transformation in community. We discover who we are in community, and we cannot fulfill God’s purpose for our lives by ourselves apart from community. In the past, we have had a few ministry structures in place to help, but we have been behind when it comes having some intentional structures in place to help people grow and thrive.
What we offer:
1. Starting Point – beginning September 15, group for New Christians to help understand what it means to be Christian.
2. Small Groups – have played and will continue to play an essential role in the spiritual transformation of people. We currently have around 20 small groups that meet every other week at different locations and different days throughout the week. Small groups are a great place where people are known, loved, and serve others as they do life together. Holly Lawrence has been here since 2002 and she has played a major in developing small groups. We are so thankful for her leadership. Some of you may or may not know that Holly is actually transitioning out of this role. Holly is planning on still being around, helping out some at Eastside, but we want to express our thanks for all you have invested in small groups. John Hunt has been for 5 years, and he has been involved in music ministry, small group leader, and he has headed up construction at Eastside. He even has past fulltime ministry experience. John is now preparing to provide leadership for our small group ministry. We are even preparing to have a “Get Connected” event in September for people interested in joining a small group and to perhaps launch some new groups. We hope to have a “get connected” event once a quarter.
3. Bible Studies: We have other groups that meet like Men’s and Women’s Bible Study, and a Bible study for moms called Moms In Touch. These take place on Wednesdays.
4. Sunday Night Series – We are also planning a spiritual formation series that will take place about once a quarter on Sunday nights. This series will cover topics like prayer, spiritual disciplines, and holiness. The first one will start October 2.
5. A Follower’s Life – Did you know that the most checked box on our connection card each week is “interested in membership.” American Express – “Membership has its privileges.” When it comes to membership, stores offer discounts for just signing up. Often can sign up to join things with no requirements or expectations.
Listen to what Paul says when it comes to being a member of the church.
Romans 12:4-5 (The Message)
But to Paul, being a “member” of the church body meant being a vital part. Membership in body of Christ, means being committed to care for each other and to ultimately as a church body care for others outside our walls.
Membership at Newark Naz is more than attending or signing up for Celebration. It is a commitment to be a part of community and to ultimately serve in ministry.
We are preparing to start “ A Follower’s Life” – a 12 week class to help people not just understand what it means to be a Christian and a member of the church of the Nazarene, but to especially help people to discover God’s shaped ministry for their lives. In fact, we are strengthening the requirements for membership at Newark Naz in that in order to become a member you must now complete this 12 week class and commit to serve in an area of ministry.
People are all at different stages of the spiritual journey. Must decide where best place for you to get involved. Just like you don’t feed a newborn baby filet mignon, if you are a new Christian, you may not be ready for “a follower’s life.” You may need to get involved in starting point. Some of you need to get connected to a small group. Some need “A Followers Life.” Even if you have taken membership class before or if involved in ministry, we encourage you to consider “A Follower’s Life.”
We believe that if you are serious about spiritual transformation, then you must move beyond the auditorium to a place where you are connected to a small group and ultimately to be a person who is serving and investing in the lives of others.
Call:
It isn’t so hard to understand why people look to the church as a refuge from the realities of the world around them. The world can seem like a scary place. It’s like getting on a roller coaster and having your seat belt break. While someone else may scream, “Do you want to go faster?” you’re begging to get off and move to stable ground.
Many church people have felt like the seat belt broke, and we didn’t know if we were going to make it. So we turned our churches into monasteries—places that became spiritual havens for us, focusing on our spiritual life, caring for our spiritual needs, and nurturing our spiritual health.
While I can hardly believe it, the church for many has become a place where the unbelieving world cannot get to them. They feel protected from this drastically changing world.
Listen carefully, God never intended for His church or body to hide behind the walls of a church building. In fact, God intends that there be no hiding place that we can hide, except in His presence. When the church becomes our shelter from the radically changing world, we fail to turn to God and make Him our hiding place and our shelter. (Much of the above adapted from An Unstoppable Force, Erwin McManus)
Jesus plainly gave us our mission statement: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. . ., and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
When asked one day what the most important commandment was Jesus responded, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
Jesus cares about people. We as a church are going to take care of people.
When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told a story that made it very clear who our neighbors are. You can interpret His story locally, nationally and globally. I believe Jesus delights in standing up against injustice and standing up for sharing His message and His love at the same time.
We believe that God is calling us to a holistic approach to ministry. We are going to walk the unique balance between caring for people’s physical needs and at the same time ministering to their spiritual needs.
Jesus wants the church to be a place of refuge not for the church but for those who are hurting, broken and weary. This is not exclusive to those in poverty. Some of the most impoverished people I have known have been the wealthiest people I have known. The call we are answering is for everyone. We are to reach everyone we possibly can regardless of race, socio-economic background, or any other discriminating factor.
The bottom line is this. If you are a part of this church you should be serving. That will mean different things for different people but we are going to be providing you opportunities to serve and use your giftedness. Here’s how you can be involved:
In reach:
We will continue to focus on providing a dynamic Sunday celebration. This takes an incredible amount of people. You will probably be asked in the near future to help serve. If somehow we miss you, you have my permission to ask to serve.
To make the call and the vision happen we are adopting a ministry work ethic: Attend one, Work one!
It’s Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and we don’t think it is too much to ask that your time given to God on this day be more than an hour. We believe that this is His day and that we are accountable for how we spend it. There are many in reach opportunities and you will be kept apprised of those on a regular basis.
Outreach:
Jesus taught that when you have done it to the least of these you have done it to Him.
This week and next at Newark Naz:
Ben Franklin Elementary landscaping beautification project.
Eastside VBS: Many of you went to help staff the Eastside VBS and without a doubt this changed your life. One of you sent these words to me by email,
“I wanted to talk to you about the impact that VBS has had on me this week at Eastside. The stories that some of these kids talk about as their home lives breaks my heart. There is one kid in particular that has touched my heart. I am hoping that I am making an impact on his life because I know he has on mine. If you talk to Chris before I see you, he can fill you in on some of it.
Anyway, there is a reason that I was put with these kids, and I want to do something to help them in some way. Even if it is just being their friend. By the time I left Bible school last night, I was in tears. It is amazing how "perfect" our world seems to us, and how comfortable we get with our world, and how hesitant we are about reaching out to those that aren't as "perfect" as we think we are.”
Operation Gear Up!
I want to thank every one of you that participated in yesterdays school supply give away. Some of you gave supplies, money and a whole lot of you showed up to help. This was a team effort and an incredible day. It felt like we were finally functioning as the body of Christ. I wondered if anyone would come to the church since we don’t really have a lot of contact in the neighborhood but come they did.
251 kids received school supplies and least 60 kids received haircuts. Close to 400 were fed.
Here is an email I received last evening:
“I just wanted to take a moment and sincerely thank you for the afternoon that we just spent with our children at your school supply fair. We all enjoyed it a great deal and wanted to commend you and your staff for being so kind and generous. We have a large family which consists of four of our own children as well as three foster children, so I'm sure you can imagine the expense involved with preparing the children to return to school. You certainly helped alleviate quite a bit of those expenses. We have been talking about trying to find a church lately as neither one of us has attended in quite some time. I think that your fair might just be the catalyst for returning. Once again thank you for your community spirit it certainly made quite an impression on our family.”
Believe me, those of us who had the privilege of being here are going to do more of this in the near future.
It is a tired old saying but so true, People will not care how much we know until they know how much we care.
The Eastside Project
In 1945, our church launched a church plant on the east side of Newark. We have been afforded the opportunity to reconnect with this ministry. The church has been closed and will reopen this fall. We are partnering with them in ministry. We are going to be asking some of you to consider being a part of this core group as they restart as a church and compassion based ministry. You will hear much more about this on September 11.
There is no doubt that God has us here for a reason and we are going to explore exactly what it is and where it is that He wants to lead us.
Know this, we are celebrating what God is doing, we are going to become a functioning community and we are going to respond to the call and watch God change lives in a dramatic fashion.
Special Report to the board made available at the service: Who are we and where are we going?
Mission: Leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
We live out this mission by embracing the following three principles:
Celebration: We believe that to have an effective community we must commit to a time of weekly celebration. At these celebrations you will experience authentic worship and challenging Biblical teaching on issues that are important to you today. We are a church that is fluid…adjusting our methods along the way to more effectively be the Church to our community.
Community: We are a church that cherishes authentic community…providing community groups to foster genuine and transparent relationships. Community groups or small groups play an essential role in the care and development of a believer. We are a church that is constantly growing…knowing that none of us have “arrived” in our spiritual journey, but are here to spur one another on in our spiritual transformation.
Call: We are a church that sees the potential in people and facilitates them in discovering God’s design for their life and contribution to His kingdom. We believe that God’s design was for every believer to participate in serving and building the church. We are a church that is compassionate…about people with needs in our community and is actively looking for ways to serve others in our community and around the world.
The Eight Core Values: ... are the application of biblical truth through the unique personality of Newark Church of the Nazarene
Authenticity
As “a real place for real people” we believe we can’t be what God has called us to be if we play games with each other. Whether it’s what happens on stage, within our small groups, serving teams or in our homes, we need to be able to share our faults and weaknesses and not fake it. That’s authenticity, just being real.
Biblical Truth
Newark Naz is a place for people on every part of the spiritual journey, from those just investigating whether there is a God, to those who have made following Christ the priority of their life. This is a safe place for everyone. But safe doesn’t mean serenity. The Bible presents a dangerous message of life change. We don’t assume everyone believes, or even knows the Bible, but we do assume everyone who comes through our doors is open to exploring it. We believe the Bible is God’s inerrant truth and it is foundational to everything we do.
Culturally Relevant Communication
"Why did they do that?" "What does that have to do with church?" How many times have you heard (or thought) that after you saw something during a service here at Newark Naz? Maybe it was a movie clip or a secular song. Stuff that seemed to be the last thing you would have expected in church. Well, believe it or not, there is a reason for all of this. There is a method to the madness.
Culturally Relevant Communication: is one of our 8 Core Values! Newark Naz is a place that helps connect those who are spiritually exploring God’s love and truth. To do this, we’re committed to doing anything to help people connect God’s timeless truth from the Bible with their day-to-day life. We do not engage in anything immoral or anti-scriptural to do this, but we do embrace creative methods used in our current culture. The challenge for us is that the Bible was written a long time ago for people in another culture. The fact that we are in Newark, Ohio in the twenty-first century doesn’t change the message that God gave 2000 years ago, but it does mean that we need to do some work to connect it to our lives today. That’s what we mean by "Culturally Relevant Communication."
It’s nothing new. It’s the kind of thing the Bible referred to in Ecclesiastes 12:10 which says, "The teacher searched to find just the right words." In fact, it’s exactly what Jesus did. Whether it was stories about sheep and goats, vineyard workers, or a guy who throws a party, Jesus used the current language and daily life of those around him to communicate truth.
Doing Life Together
We aren’t interested in being a church where a lot of people get together for an inspiring service but never move beyond the casual arm's distance relationships of an auditorium. We want to grow by really "doing life together." Community is knowing and being known, loving and being loved, celebrating and being celebrated, and serving and being served. The people, who really grow at Newark Naz, are those who move beyond the auditorium through serving and/or being part of a small group, service team and building friendships in which all of these happen.
Excellence
We don’t believe in striving for unrealistic perfection. We do believe excellence is about bringing your best to God’s work and to life in general. Whenever we do anything as a church we want to bring our "A Game." Whether it’s our communication and music, how we hold babies in the nursery or how we take care of the building, we want it to reflect this.
Functional Structures
We believe that ministries are only valid when they are functional. Ministries that no longer support the mission of the church or are not functioning effectively will be reviewed and eliminated. New ministries will proactively be encouraged and affirmed to meet the changing needs of the culture and our community.
Growth
We don’t expect everyone who walks into this church to be a committed Christ-follower. But we do expect everyone who is around our community for any length of time to be growing. We expect every person to be moving closer to being the complete image of Christ in every area of life. When it isn’t happening we need to ask why. The answers aren’t always comfortable. In fact we often grow only when we are pushed out of our comfort zone. We believe that growth includes service. We are about service not “serve-us.”
Reproduction
Reproduction is about recognizing something that God has created and then going about being a tool when He reproduces that element in other places. Newark Naz wants to be a place where Christ-followers reproduce Christ-followers, leaders reproduce leaders and churches reproduce other churches.
A Vision for Today and the Near Future
As the Lead Pastor of Newark Church of the Nazarene, I have spent the last several months seeking to understand the will of God concerning this ministry. I have sought to understand this city and the needs that are very obvious. After many board meetings, future facilities team meetings, a focus group, private conversations with church members, attendees, fellow pastors, staff and General and District denominational officials I have come to the following conclusions:
1. Our church is poised to engage in significant ministry that will affect the greater Licking County area and beyond.
2. We have the resources to begin to engage our culture outside the walls of the building.
3. We have a very meaningful Sunday morning service that serves as an entry point for new people.
4. We have a few ministry structures in place but are woefully behind the curve for the amount of people we serve.
5. We have a good ministry structure on paper but must continue to focus on implementing the vision and our core values.
6. We have staff areas that must and are being addressed to strengthen our ministry capabilities. These include executive pastor, Children’s ministry leader, Small Groups and the area of administrative secretary/bookkeeping.
7. We have a continuing space issue that affects parking, second service seating accommodations, and the need of expanding ministries (Children, Youth and Adult) to have more space during the week.
8. We have an unemployment problem in the church. While many people serve the
2005/08/21
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NewarkNaz - A New Direction Celebration
Today is Vision Sunday and so this will feel quite a bit different than a normal Sunday here at Newark Naz. I would like you to take the cards out that you were given this morning when you came in. If you don’t have them we have them available in a larger version here on the platform. There are symbols on each one that will help you remember what our vision is all about.
There are three elements that make up the vision of how we do ministry. They are Celebration, Community and Call. We believe and teach that to be a fully devoted follower of Christ you will have all three of these elements in your life. This morning we are going to give you as many of the details as we can of what we believe the future needs to look like for our church.
Each week Brian Redman leads us in worship in our Sunday Celebration service and I have asked him to share a some thoughts with you about celebration.
Brian:
Each week the Worship Design Team meets on Tuesdays to design our Celebrations for Sunday mornings. Through prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit, we try to create an atmosphere that leads us through a worship experience…where each of us participates in authentic worship.
I absolutely enjoy our celebrations each Sunday. God has given me a passion to really worship Him and to lead people do the same.
But if you’re like me…it hasn’t always been easy to genuinely worship God with a sense of freedom and abandon and a sense of awe. In fact, it’s only been in the last few years where I feel that God has helped me to understand what it means to truly worship Him. And although I’m certainly not in expert on the subject of worship, I just want to share a couple of insights that has helped me to grow as a worshipper.
1 I need to have a relationship with God. In other words, I have to know Him as my Savior, the One who has forgiven my sins.
2 I need to have a heart for God and a heart for things about God. To do this, I have to spend time daily with Him. This can be a difficult one.
3 Need to have a heart of surrender…a heart that listens and obeys God’s spirit as He calls. It’s living it out 24/7
4 Be who you are!!! Be sincere…honest…vulnerable.
John 4:23 & 24
But the time is coming--it has, in fact, come--when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter. "It's who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That's the kind of people the Father is out looking for…those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is Spirit. Those who worship Him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration."
A lot of words to hear at one time…but the key phrases are ↑
I love God with everything in me. I love music. I love being together in this place. I love to feel things deeply…but when it came to expressing my worship in a passionate way (my true self) I felt so stifled. But God has given me a freedom to worship and experience Him in a real way…and there’s a whole story that I don’t have time to tell you this morning. But I want to encourage each one of you to pursue God with a heart that’s hungry for Him. To become authentic worshippers who want the things of God more than the things that we want for ourselves. To pursue God’s presence and obey His Spirit.
I believe when we come to this place, that true worship can be experienced…and that’s my prayer for everyone as we gather together each Sunday to celebrate God and His glory.
Wes:
Now I would like you to look at the back of your cards. The celebration card to be exact. The question that we obviously need to answer is where are we going to have this celebration service in the future.
About a year ago when our attendance began to exceed a comfortable level for this facility especially in the 10:00 service there was a terrible wrestling match that began inside of me. Pastors in today’s church climate have been almost been saturated with the thought that bigger is better and if bigger is happening in your church you need to do everything you can to not lose the “big Mo,” as one church growth expert of the past has worded it. Momentum is everything, many of us have been taught. Do whatever is necessary to preserve momentum. I have watched as many churches have taken this advice and launched into building programs only to find that the unwritten theory, “if you build it they will come,” is truly just a good plot line for a movie. I have watched them shift their emphasis from mission and ministry to mortgages and building funds. This is not true in every case but this is what I was wrestling with.
From day one of my being here I have been drawn to try to engage the community that our church is a part of. Personally, I believe we are responsible to at least make a good effort to touch our own church neighborhood with the Message. So the big question has been to leave or not to leave.
We have explored many different options. From the former Big Bear building on Twenty-First Street to the empty Scott lumber building to pieces of property that we could build on. None of these options felt right for now.
The big conclusion for the present is that we have been strategically located here for a reason and we are going to stay in this neighborhood. How do we do that when we continue to grow? Good question, let me give you some direction and answer that question.
To stay here is not a cheap option. It is much less expensive then if we were to move completely to another location but there are things we need to do to enable us to have effective ministry here. This includes the acquiring of a couple of additional buildings in close proximity to the church to do be able to expand our ministry.
We will in the next few days launch a capital campaign. This campaign will cover the cost of finishing the reconstruction of this property as well as allowing us to purchase at least two additional structures. While I cannot take the time this morning to give you precise details we will keep you informed about this over the next few Sundays. We are going to need between six and seven hundred thousand dollars to complete this campaign and do the things that are critical to us staying here.
I will tell you that when this money is raised we will finish putting windows in this building, pave the parking lots, address drainage problems that will allow us to finish rooms in the basement that currently take on water during heavy rains, raise the sound booth into a balcony and many other exciting things that desperately need to happen. Down the road who knows what God will lead us to do. I still have in my heart the building down the street that I believe that we will one day be using for ministry. The current owners don’t see it yet but they will.
All of these things are important because we are staying here to minister to a neighborhood that needs us. Making the functional and aesthetic changes to our building will make a much needed statement to our community. We will raise the value of homes around us as we clean up our own property.
There is a very important reason that I am not worried about growth and getting bigger. We will, I believe continue to grow. We are prepared if necessary to expand to a Saturday evening service later this fall or next year. The reason I am not concerning with trying to get bigger is that we have a critical need to stop where we are and address some major spiritual issues.
We own the fact, as a leadership team, that while we have grown as a church numerically we have to address the issue of spiritual transformation. Spiritual transformation or growth will not happen by just attending a Sunday morning celebration. We are going to take the needed time to focus on putting the structures in place that will promote the spiritual transformation of the body. Tevis Austin is our Executive Pastor. He is responsible for day to day operations, staff development and also will share in the teaching and preaching that we do in the future. I have asked him to share the vision for Community. After a time of worship and celebration, he is going to come and share this part of the vision for us.
Community – “We are reaching in.”
Jesus made it clear in Matthew 28 that our mission is to go and make disciples. Therefore, Newark Naz is more than a great Celebration on Sunday mornings. We are more than “upward,” we are also about reaching inward and encouraging one another towards spiritual transformation - making disciples – we are about leading people into a growing relationship with Christ. In order for real spiritual transformation to take place, you need more than just Celebration. Celebration is a very meaningful way to worship God, but it is an entry point for new people. Just because you attend something doesn’t mean you are growing spiritually. You will never grow to spiritual maturity just by attending Celebration.
Are we saying that you can’t just go to Celebration and be a Christian? You can come to Celebration, get up on Monday, dress yourself, brush your teeth, go to work, make some money, have a family, and survive life. But God’s way isn’t for you to survive spiritually. His way is for you to thrive spiritually.
We don’t assume everyone who attends believes, or even knows the Bible. We do assume everyone who comes through our doors is open to exploring the Bible, and we do expect everyone who is around our community for any length of time to be growing spiritually.
Illustration: Kind of like going to gas station and just sitting. Just because go to gas station doesn’t mean I’m getting filled. Doesn’t mean things are being checked underneath the hood. I’ve got to do something. *You must make the effort to grow and thrive spiritually.
Hebrews 10:23-24Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess…And let us consider how we may spur one another (encourage one another) on toward love and good deeds.
None of us have arrived in our spiritual journey. We need each other to spur one another, to encourage and support each other on in our spiritual journey.
People long for community. We crave authentic, genuine, transparent relationships. We want to be connected to others. We are able to make it through hard times, survive conflicts, and overcome life’s challenges in community. But apart from community, we can lose faith, and life can seem to fall apart. That is why community is so important. That is why the atmosphere we try to create here from the very first time a person comes here is so important. That is why our “connect ministries” is so important – people who are helping in parking lot, greeters, helping to get coffee and refreshments ready, ushers, people whose main responsibility is to connect with people and care.
We are committed to be a real place where real people are able to share faults and weaknesses and not fake it - where people do life together, where people are committed to knowing others and being known, to loving others and being loved, to serving others and being served.
We experience spiritual transformation in community. We discover who we are in community, and we cannot fulfill God’s purpose for our lives by ourselves apart from community. In the past, we have had a few ministry structures in place to help, but we have been behind when it comes having some intentional structures in place to help people grow and thrive.
What we offer:
1. Starting Point – beginning September 15, group for New Christians to help understand what it means to be Christian.
2. Small Groups – have played and will continue to play an essential role in the spiritual transformation of people. We currently have around 20 small groups that meet every other week at different locations and different days throughout the week. Small groups are a great place where people are known, loved, and serve others as they do life together. Holly Lawrence has been here since 2002 and she has played a major in developing small groups. We are so thankful for her leadership. Some of you may or may not know that Holly is actually transitioning out of this role. Holly is planning on still being around, helping out some at Eastside, but we want to express our thanks for all you have invested in small groups. John Hunt has been for 5 years, and he has been involved in music ministry, small group leader, and he has headed up construction at Eastside. He even has past fulltime ministry experience. John is now preparing to provide leadership for our small group ministry. We are even preparing to have a “Get Connected” event in September for people interested in joining a small group and to perhaps launch some new groups. We hope to have a “get connected” event once a quarter.
3. Bible Studies: We have other groups that meet like Men’s and Women’s Bible Study, and a Bible study for moms called Moms In Touch. These take place on Wednesdays.
4. Sunday Night Series – We are also planning a spiritual formation series that will take place about once a quarter on Sunday nights. This series will cover topics like prayer, spiritual disciplines, and holiness. The first one will start October 2.
5. A Follower’s Life – Did you know that the most checked box on our connection card each week is “interested in membership.” American Express – “Membership has its privileges.” When it comes to membership, stores offer discounts for just signing up. Often can sign up to join things with no requirements or expectations.
Listen to what Paul says when it comes to being a member of the church.
Romans 12:4-5 (The Message)
But to Paul, being a “member” of the church body meant being a vital part. Membership in body of Christ, means being committed to care for each other and to ultimately as a church body care for others outside our walls.
Membership at Newark Naz is more than attending or signing up for Celebration. It is a commitment to be a part of community and to ultimately serve in ministry.
We are preparing to start “ A Follower’s Life” – a 12 week class to help people not just understand what it means to be a Christian and a member of the church of the Nazarene, but to especially help people to discover God’s shaped ministry for their lives. In fact, we are strengthening the requirements for membership at Newark Naz in that in order to become a member you must now complete this 12 week class and commit to serve in an area of ministry.
People are all at different stages of the spiritual journey. Must decide where best place for you to get involved. Just like you don’t feed a newborn baby filet mignon, if you are a new Christian, you may not be ready for “a follower’s life.” You may need to get involved in starting point. Some of you need to get connected to a small group. Some need “A Followers Life.” Even if you have taken membership class before or if involved in ministry, we encourage you to consider “A Follower’s Life.”
We believe that if you are serious about spiritual transformation, then you must move beyond the auditorium to a place where you are connected to a small group and ultimately to be a person who is serving and investing in the lives of others.
Call:
It isn’t so hard to understand why people look to the church as a refuge from the realities of the world around them. The world can seem like a scary place. It’s like getting on a roller coaster and having your seat belt break. While someone else may scream, “Do you want to go faster?” you’re begging to get off and move to stable ground.
Many church people have felt like the seat belt broke, and we didn’t know if we were going to make it. So we turned our churches into monasteries—places that became spiritual havens for us, focusing on our spiritual life, caring for our spiritual needs, and nurturing our spiritual health.
While I can hardly believe it, the church for many has become a place where the unbelieving world cannot get to them. They feel protected from this drastically changing world.
Listen carefully, God never intended for His church or body to hide behind the walls of a church building. In fact, God intends that there be no hiding place that we can hide, except in His presence. When the church becomes our shelter from the radically changing world, we fail to turn to God and make Him our hiding place and our shelter. (Much of the above adapted from An Unstoppable Force, Erwin McManus)
Jesus plainly gave us our mission statement: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them. . ., and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”
When asked one day what the most important commandment was Jesus responded, “That you love the Lord your God with all your passion and prayer and muscle and intelligence and that you love your neighbor as well as you do yourself.”
Jesus cares about people. We as a church are going to take care of people.
When asked, “Who is my neighbor?” Jesus told a story that made it very clear who our neighbors are. You can interpret His story locally, nationally and globally. I believe Jesus delights in standing up against injustice and standing up for sharing His message and His love at the same time.
We believe that God is calling us to a holistic approach to ministry. We are going to walk the unique balance between caring for people’s physical needs and at the same time ministering to their spiritual needs.
Jesus wants the church to be a place of refuge not for the church but for those who are hurting, broken and weary. This is not exclusive to those in poverty. Some of the most impoverished people I have known have been the wealthiest people I have known. The call we are answering is for everyone. We are to reach everyone we possibly can regardless of race, socio-economic background, or any other discriminating factor.
The bottom line is this. If you are a part of this church you should be serving. That will mean different things for different people but we are going to be providing you opportunities to serve and use your giftedness. Here’s how you can be involved:
In reach:
We will continue to focus on providing a dynamic Sunday celebration. This takes an incredible amount of people. You will probably be asked in the near future to help serve. If somehow we miss you, you have my permission to ask to serve.
To make the call and the vision happen we are adopting a ministry work ethic: Attend one, Work one!
It’s Sunday, the Lord’s Day, and we don’t think it is too much to ask that your time given to God on this day be more than an hour. We believe that this is His day and that we are accountable for how we spend it. There are many in reach opportunities and you will be kept apprised of those on a regular basis.
Outreach:
Jesus taught that when you have done it to the least of these you have done it to Him.
This week and next at Newark Naz:
Ben Franklin Elementary landscaping beautification project.
Eastside VBS: Many of you went to help staff the Eastside VBS and without a doubt this changed your life. One of you sent these words to me by email,
“I wanted to talk to you about the impact that VBS has had on me this week at Eastside. The stories that some of these kids talk about as their home lives breaks my heart. There is one kid in particular that has touched my heart. I am hoping that I am making an impact on his life because I know he has on mine. If you talk to Chris before I see you, he can fill you in on some of it.
Anyway, there is a reason that I was put with these kids, and I want to do something to help them in some way. Even if it is just being their friend. By the time I left Bible school last night, I was in tears. It is amazing how "perfect" our world seems to us, and how comfortable we get with our world, and how hesitant we are about reaching out to those that aren't as "perfect" as we think we are.”
Operation Gear Up!
I want to thank every one of you that participated in yesterdays school supply give away. Some of you gave supplies, money and a whole lot of you showed up to help. This was a team effort and an incredible day. It felt like we were finally functioning as the body of Christ. I wondered if anyone would come to the church since we don’t really have a lot of contact in the neighborhood but come they did.
251 kids received school supplies and least 60 kids received haircuts. Close to 400 were fed.
Here is an email I received last evening:
“I just wanted to take a moment and sincerely thank you for the afternoon that we just spent with our children at your school supply fair. We all enjoyed it a great deal and wanted to commend you and your staff for being so kind and generous. We have a large family which consists of four of our own children as well as three foster children, so I'm sure you can imagine the expense involved with preparing the children to return to school. You certainly helped alleviate quite a bit of those expenses. We have been talking about trying to find a church lately as neither one of us has attended in quite some time. I think that your fair might just be the catalyst for returning. Once again thank you for your community spirit it certainly made quite an impression on our family.”
Believe me, those of us who had the privilege of being here are going to do more of this in the near future.
It is a tired old saying but so true, People will not care how much we know until they know how much we care.
The Eastside Project
In 1945, our church launched a church plant on the east side of Newark. We have been afforded the opportunity to reconnect with this ministry. The church has been closed and will reopen this fall. We are partnering with them in ministry. We are going to be asking some of you to consider being a part of this core group as they restart as a church and compassion based ministry. You will hear much more about this on September 11.
There is no doubt that God has us here for a reason and we are going to explore exactly what it is and where it is that He wants to lead us.
Know this, we are celebrating what God is doing, we are going to become a functioning community and we are going to respond to the call and watch God change lives in a dramatic fashion.
Special Report to the board made available at the service: Who are we and where are we going?
Mission: Leading people into a growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
We live out this mission by embracing the following three principles:
Celebration: We believe that to have an effective community we must commit to a time of weekly celebration. At these celebrations you will experience authentic worship and challenging Biblical teaching on issues that are important to you today. We are a church that is fluid…adjusting our methods along the way to more effectively be the Church to our community.
Community: We are a church that cherishes authentic community…providing community groups to foster genuine and transparent relationships. Community groups or small groups play an essential role in the care and development of a believer. We are a church that is constantly growing…knowing that none of us have “arrived” in our spiritual journey, but are here to spur one another on in our spiritual transformation.
Call: We are a church that sees the potential in people and facilitates them in discovering God’s design for their life and contribution to His kingdom. We believe that God’s design was for every believer to participate in serving and building the church. We are a church that is compassionate…about people with needs in our community and is actively looking for ways to serve others in our community and around the world.
The Eight Core Values: ... are the application of biblical truth through the unique personality of Newark Church of the Nazarene
Authenticity
As “a real place for real people” we believe we can’t be what God has called us to be if we play games with each other. Whether it’s what happens on stage, within our small groups, serving teams or in our homes, we need to be able to share our faults and weaknesses and not fake it. That’s authenticity, just being real.
Biblical Truth
Newark Naz is a place for people on every part of the spiritual journey, from those just investigating whether there is a God, to those who have made following Christ the priority of their life. This is a safe place for everyone. But safe doesn’t mean serenity. The Bible presents a dangerous message of life change. We don’t assume everyone believes, or even knows the Bible, but we do assume everyone who comes through our doors is open to exploring it. We believe the Bible is God’s inerrant truth and it is foundational to everything we do.
Culturally Relevant Communication
"Why did they do that?" "What does that have to do with church?" How many times have you heard (or thought) that after you saw something during a service here at Newark Naz? Maybe it was a movie clip or a secular song. Stuff that seemed to be the last thing you would have expected in church. Well, believe it or not, there is a reason for all of this. There is a method to the madness.
Culturally Relevant Communication: is one of our 8 Core Values! Newark Naz is a place that helps connect those who are spiritually exploring God’s love and truth. To do this, we’re committed to doing anything to help people connect God’s timeless truth from the Bible with their day-to-day life. We do not engage in anything immoral or anti-scriptural to do this, but we do embrace creative methods used in our current culture. The challenge for us is that the Bible was written a long time ago for people in another culture. The fact that we are in Newark, Ohio in the twenty-first century doesn’t change the message that God gave 2000 years ago, but it does mean that we need to do some work to connect it to our lives today. That’s what we mean by "Culturally Relevant Communication."
It’s nothing new. It’s the kind of thing the Bible referred to in Ecclesiastes 12:10 which says, "The teacher searched to find just the right words." In fact, it’s exactly what Jesus did. Whether it was stories about sheep and goats, vineyard workers, or a guy who throws a party, Jesus used the current language and daily life of those around him to communicate truth.
Doing Life Together
We aren’t interested in being a church where a lot of people get together for an inspiring service but never move beyond the casual arm's distance relationships of an auditorium. We want to grow by really "doing life together." Community is knowing and being known, loving and being loved, celebrating and being celebrated, and serving and being served. The people, who really grow at Newark Naz, are those who move beyond the auditorium through serving and/or being part of a small group, service team and building friendships in which all of these happen.
Excellence
We don’t believe in striving for unrealistic perfection. We do believe excellence is about bringing your best to God’s work and to life in general. Whenever we do anything as a church we want to bring our "A Game." Whether it’s our communication and music, how we hold babies in the nursery or how we take care of the building, we want it to reflect this.
Functional Structures
We believe that ministries are only valid when they are functional. Ministries that no longer support the mission of the church or are not functioning effectively will be reviewed and eliminated. New ministries will proactively be encouraged and affirmed to meet the changing needs of the culture and our community.
Growth
We don’t expect everyone who walks into this church to be a committed Christ-follower. But we do expect everyone who is around our community for any length of time to be growing. We expect every person to be moving closer to being the complete image of Christ in every area of life. When it isn’t happening we need to ask why. The answers aren’t always comfortable. In fact we often grow only when we are pushed out of our comfort zone. We believe that growth includes service. We are about service not “serve-us.”
Reproduction
Reproduction is about recognizing something that God has created and then going about being a tool when He reproduces that element in other places. Newark Naz wants to be a place where Christ-followers reproduce Christ-followers, leaders reproduce leaders and churches reproduce other churches.
A Vision for Today and the Near Future
As the Lead Pastor of Newark Church of the Nazarene, I have spent the last several months seeking to understand the will of God concerning this ministry. I have sought to understand this city and the needs that are very obvious. After many board meetings, future facilities team meetings, a focus group, private conversations with church members, attendees, fellow pastors, staff and General and District denominational officials I have come to the following conclusions:
1. Our church is poised to engage in significant ministry that will affect the greater Licking County area and beyond.
2. We have the resources to begin to engage our culture outside the walls of the building.
3. We have a very meaningful Sunday morning service that serves as an entry point for new people.
4. We have a few ministry structures in place but are woefully behind the curve for the amount of people we serve.
5. We have a good ministry structure on paper but must continue to focus on implementing the vision and our core values.
6. We have staff areas that must and are being addressed to strengthen our ministry capabilities. These include executive pastor, Children’s ministry leader, Small Groups and the area of administrative secretary/bookkeeping.
7. We have a continuing space issue that affects parking, second service seating accommodations, and the need of expanding ministries (Children, Youth and Adult) to have more space during the week.
8. We have an unemployment problem in the church. While many people serve the
