by Erik Hall planter of Barnegat Anew in Barnegat, New Jersey
Last summer our new church start organized our very first regional mission trip. A team of 17 people ranging in age from 7 to 79 and ranging in spiritual maturity from life-long Christian to less than one year in the faith, travelled to Southeastern Kentucky to work out of a small rural church rehabilitating homes in the community. Continue reading
by Jim Ozier, Director of New Church Development and Congregational Transformation for the North Texas Conference (and Path 1 Associate)
2 baptisms, 1 profession of faith, 15 first time guests, attendance 0f 251, offering $7100, 9 small groups. Those were the numbers reported on the weekly statistical report for “The Village UMC” last week. These numbers are very much in line with previous weeks and months.
I smiled reading them. A few years ago this project was stuck and going nowhere beyond a struggling weekly bible study and launch team meetings. Shrouded in stresses with the Mother Church, I seriously doubted if it would ever get to public worship, let alone grow steadily if not spectacularly over the last thrity-six months. They are on track to charter later this year. Continue reading
by Philip Brooks Path 1 NCS Assistant
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”
Matthew 18:20 NRSV
One characteristic we expect from all our new church starts is that they offer frequent worship service, roughly once a week at a time when most people living in their area would be able to attend, so probably during the weekend. Worship matters, especially when starting a new community of faith. We emphasize its importance all the more because our culture’s beginning to forget it. I know plenty of self-identified Christians who say they don’t attend worship regularly because they don’t need to put on a spectacle of faith in front of people. If I thought that’s what worship means, I wouldn’t go either. Continue reading
“I look upon the world as my parish…” John Wesley Works XXV, 616
The first book I read on the multi-ethnic church was Stephen A. Rhodes’, “Where the Nations Meet: The Church in a Multicultural World,” which was based on his personal visits to multi-ethnic churches in the United States. The title is what initially caught my attention. After reading the book I began to wonder how the United Methodist Church would fare in its effort to the comply with Christ’s great commission to “go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” given our demographic shift. Continue reading
By Barbara Sadler, Path 1 Associate
Several years ago when the church I have been a part of for the past thirty-four years decided to “plant” a second campus, an intentional decision was made to follow some of the practices of our founder, John Wesley.
Not only did Wesley promote the theology of grace, he also married social gospel with Christian gospel, beginning with God’s Grace given to us, and then His Grace extended to others through us. Continue reading
by Doug Ruffle, Congregational Development Team Coordinator, Greater New Jersey Annual Conference (and Path 1 Team Northeastern Jurisdiction Representative)
Real Estate brokers always emphasize that the value of a given property depends on location, location, and location. For new church starts, the application of Wesleyan/Methodist theology could be rendered: grace, grace, and grace. Wesley’s theology of grace was the engine that drove the Methodist movement of 18th century England. The Good News or Gospel, which we may take for granted today, sounded like very Good News back then:
by Erik Hall planter of Barnegat Anew in Barnegat, New Jersey
During our new church’s preview season (in the summer of 2010) I agonized over the theme our worship celebrations would embody. We were meeting in our town’s community center which looked much more like a large kindergarten classroom than a worship space. As a new church start we did not have the resources for any fancy lighting or professional creative designing to help communicate that we were carving out some sacred space. As we faced the reality that ‘environment matters’, I knew the ‘kindergarten clutter’ thing wasn’t helping us to intentionally communicate who we were or what we were about. Continue reading
