9 Of My Favorite Memories So Far At New City Church
This Sunday (April 7, 2019) New City Church is celebrating two years as a church. It's hard for me to believe it's been two years already as I can still remember so much about the process and difficulties of trying to start New City.
God has been more gracious to us than we deserve, but that is kind of his thing. So today on the blog I'm
1) Signing the lease for our facility
The process for finding a meeting space for New City was tremendously difficult. We kept getting "no" after "no" for various reasons at every school, community center, and
Finally I went on the website of this church who put their road sign out every weekend at this office park on the other side of the street from where Christina and I lived. It turned out they were moving. So we pursued moving into their space, so many things had to work out for us to get it, and God made it happen. We signed the lease in January of 2017, moved in March 1, and launched New City on April 2.
2) Our first public service on April 2, 2017
We had 107 people that day (pictured above). Many friends and people who prayed for and/or supported us financially came out to encourage us on our first day. Everything went smoothly. Though I/we still had a lot to learn (but that never ends), it was a good day. A day I sometimes thought was never going to happen.
3) Preaching through Judges in the fall of 2017
At New City, we preach through books of the Bible and also do series on specific topics. Judges was the second book I preached through at New City. It was fun, but I wouldn't do that again. Not that I wouldn't preach through Judges, but I would have waited until I had a little bit more skill and experience in preaching. I still was trying to find my voice and style as a preacher. It was an 11-week series (I think) and by week 6 of the series, it pretty much became the same message every week, just with different characters. I hadn't quite learned how to nuance similar-type passages yet and pull out different applicable points even if the story was roughly the same.
4) Joining Acts 29 in the fall of 2017
The month before we launched New City, I applied for Acts 29. Acts 29 is a global church planting network of church planting churches. We went through the assessment process and all that goes with that, and New City joined Acts 29 in the fall of 2017. I've received some incredible training, friendships, and opportunities being a part of this network and highly recommend it for anyone interested in planting a church.
5) Our first Christmas/second Easter services
We had our first Christmas services (Christmas Eve-Eve) on December 23, 2017. We had two evening services, which was significant for us because we were only doing one service each week at that time.
It turned out we didn't need two services for Christmas, and so the energy and feel was what it would have been if we had only had one. However, we also had two services for Easter in 2018 (our first Easter service was two weeks after we launched in 2017), and it was a good thing we did as we would not have fit in only one service.
6) Starting to see growth in July 2018
We would see random Sunday's with higher attendance, but it would mostly average somewhere in the 60s (people per week) each month. In July of 2018, for whatever reason, we started to grow. We had to move to two services in September of 2018 because of it and every so often now we get two pretty full services, so we might have to add another at some point this year. It has been exciting to connect with more people so that we can fulfill our mission as a church; helping people meet Jesus and grow in a relationship with him
7) Every Sunday we get to do baptisms
It is always so encouraging to see people take steps in their faith, and baptism is a public marker of people who have decided to follow Jesus. In fact, at our last baptism Sunday (two Sundays ago) we had five baptisms, which is the most we have ever had at one time.
8) My first Sunday preaching without notes (September 2018)
In 2018 I really began working on my preaching. I want to be the best that I can be so that I can help people see and understand Jesus, his Word, and how the Gospel impacts every area of our life. In the beginning of 2018, I would preach with about five pages of notes. Essentially everything I was going to say (minus my stories) was written out. I didn't necessarily read it word for word while preaching, but it was all there in case I needed it.
One of the ways to connect with people better while preaching is to use fewer notes. So I began a journey that lead me to preach without any notes (which I never thought I would be able to do). The first week I did it, I thought it was a one-time thing, I didn't think I was ready to do it every week. But I tried it again the following week and haven't looked back. You can read more about that journey of preaching without notes
To be clear, I don't preach from memory or without any aids. All of my big points are shown on our screens which help me remember the direction of the message and what I am supposed to talk about next, but I don't bring any notes with me on stage. And while that means I sometimes miss or forget something I want to say, the connection with the audience more than makes up for it.
9) Deciding to do a really long sermon series (1 Corinthians)
If you want to preach through books of the Bible, there are only so many books that are relatively short (and therefore you can do in 8 weeks or less). But all of Scripture is powerful, and so the not-as-short books deserve to
So we decided to do it starting in January this year. It's been three months and we are only about 1/3 of the way through it. But I think it has gone really well and it hasn't been the same thing every week like it became to be when we went through Judges. We are going to break up 1 C
And so much more
There are so many things I could write about. People, moments, God's faithfulness, and answered prayers. I look forward to what God is going to do through the people of New City and while looking back with thankfulness at his goodness toward us that he has already displayed.