New Hope Community Church is a diverse community of people, all of which are on a spiritual journey. While some have known Jesus for decades, still others are now investigating the claims of Christ for the very first time.
While we normally don’t care for buzz words or stereotypes, we find it important from an organizational standpoint to present a clear vision of the style of ministry and type of church New Hope will strive to be. While this ministry perspective is somewhat wide in scope, it provides a framework and some tangible direction to the church we are and the church we want to become in the future.
We like to put it this way: New Hope is not an ‘either/or’ church. Rather, we are a ‘both/and’ church.
- We consider ourselves “attractional” AND “missional”.
- We think that the church should be for believers AND unbelievers.
- We believe we should be about evangelization AND discipleship.
- We think worship should be celebratory AND reflective.
- We believe messages should be Biblical AND relevant.
- We affirm that we should be a “come and see” AND a “go and be” church.
- We fully commit to being the Church inside AND outside of the church walls.
- We feel it’s our responsibility to mobilize our people for service in the church AND in the community.
Our weekend services are “attractional”. We want the people in our community to ‘come and see’ what Jesus is up to. We desire our church family to invest in their friends and invite them to our weekend gathering as part of the spiritual search. In doing so, we promise to present Jesus and the Gospel in a way we think will resonate with them. Our music style is something they will enjoy; and our worship will be compelling and inviting to the non-believer. Our messages will be relevant to both mature believers and those just starting their spiritual journey. Each weekend, we’ll inspire and motivate people to take their next step, whatever that looks like for them, in order to become a more mature follower of Jesus.
At the same time, we consider our church to be ‘missional’. We want our church to not just ‘come and see’ but also ‘go and be’. This means that we put a high value on disciple-making and mentoring at every level of ministry. Our end goal is to develop true Christian leaders in our home, church, and community, and to make increasingly mature followers of Jesus. We think small groups and missional groups play a crucial role in this development. We want to raise up an army of people who are able to serve Jesus both inside and outside the church walls.
We think the church in Acts 2 was both attractional AND missional. New Hope will strive to keep a balance of both, knowing that without the ‘missional’ aspects of our ministry, we would have the tendency to become a weekend ‘show’ without substance; and without the ‘attractional’ aspects of ministry, we would miss out on an important opportunity and mandate we have as a church to share the message of Jesus with our community however possible.
To maintain this balance, we work as a team. The Lead Pastor, Executive Pastor and Elder Board are constantly evaluating ministry programs and outreach so we stay ‘on mission’. We also seek to regularly communicate with our staff, lay leadership, and attenders the value of our “both/and” strategy.
We realize that there is constant pull and tension in being the kind of ‘BOTH/AND’ church that this document describes. This ministry and philosophy statement comes out of our steadfast commitment to obey and apply God’s Word for His glory. We realize that this is a ‘living document’ that will need to be consistently evaluated and tweaked to insure this main goal is kept in balance and focus.
