Mission: 

To help unchurched people become fully devoted followers of Christ. 

Vision:

The Church Next Door

Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.” And the second is like it: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39). We ask the question, “What would it look like for an entire church to love its neighbors in practical ways?” For us, The Church Next Door involves:

  1. Individuals and families serving as great neighbors in their neighborhoods.
  2. Small Groups adopting projects that help their communities in small ways.
  3. The entire church working together on 1-2 large projects annually to make a measurable difference in our community.       

The goal of The Church Next Door is to  reach every home and person in our surrounding community by touching them in meaningful ways that let them know that God cares for them. In order to accomplish this we will need to develop teaching and touching ministry, roles and relationships to people in every age, stage and ethnicity in our area, some of which will be delivered to these groups, rather than asking them to come to our church location. So our intention is to continue to add venues until our building is full, and then begin to add satellite locations in order to reach, build, and transform more people.


The Five-Step Strategy


We developed a five-step strategy for fulfilling this goal:


Step 1 = Experience grace and truth together. (John 1:14)


When Jesus came to earth, He was “full of grace and truth”  (John 1:14). Most people need to experience God’s grace before they can receive the truth. Inviting friends to attend a weekend service is a very powerful evangelism strategy. Once at church,  all of us experience grace and truth together, through warm welcomes, meaningful relationships, and truth-filled teaching from God’s Word. Our hope is that every person experiences     grace and truth every time they enter New Song’s building, attend a New Song small group, or come to a New Song sponsored event.

Step 2 = Take personal responsibility for my spiritual growth. (Philippians 2:12-13)


The normal pattern of spiritual growth in our church is to see spiritual bystanders become spiritual seekers; spiritual seekers become believers in Christ, and believers to progress in their faith towards full devotion to Christ. The Apostle Paul calls the very mature, “soldiers” in Philippians 2:25. So we think of spiritual progress as moving from bystander, to seeker, to believer, to soldier. In many churches, once a person becomes a believer, there is a sense that everything is now taken care of, so they can coast until eternity. 2 Peter 3:18 commands us to “grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ,” while Philippians 2:12 tells us to “continue to work out our salvation….” Our goal is for everyone to “become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ,” (Ephesians 4:13). We encourage all believers to take personal responsibility for their spiritual growth. To help this happen, we have developed a spiritual growth process, called “Next Steps”. 

Our “Next Step” is a series of relationships, events, systems and processes that helps each of us take small steps forward in our growth in Christ. Next Step brochures are available at the Information Center. The process is simple: pick up a Next Step brochure and check the boxes of every item you’ve already completed. When you come to an item that isn’t checked, that’s your Next Step. New believers and mature veterans alike are encouraged to take active responsibility for their personal spiritual growth in this way.

Step 3 = Pray for our circle of relationships. (Acts 2: 42, 47; Luke 10: 2-3)


Before we talk to our friends about Jesus, we want to talk to Jesus about our friends. Members are encouraged to pray regularly for their friends, neighbors, co-workers and classmates. Leading up to Easter, we ask everyone to pray for seven friends for seven weeks. Three or four times a year we hold weeklong, twenty-four hour prayer events in our Prayer Room. 

Step 4 = Serve them in practical ways. (Matthew 5:16; Acts 9:39)


Good deeds build good will, which creates opportunities to share the good news. We encourage everyone to look for ways to serve their neighbors. We are also encouraged to do “Random Acts of Kindness” wherever we are. We have printed Random Act of Kindness cards with the church’s information on it so that New Songers can give these to the people they are serving. Often, RAK cards are given anonymously, as a New Songer pays for a meal for the person behind them at a drive-through and leaves the card with the cashier or serves in other ways where they are not seen

Step 5 = Invite them to join us. (John 1:46; 4:29)


Our Fruit class trains members to share their faith in a simple, non-threatening way. But often the easiest way to introduce friends to the Lord is to introduce them first to the church. In John 1:46, rather than explaining his faith, Philip invited his friend Nathaniel to “Come and see,” Jesus. In John 4:29, the woman at the well invited her whole village to “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.” A “Come and see” invitation has been the first step towards faith for thousands of people at New Song.