Crazy Things Happen in 3s

They say BAD things happen in 3's.
I have even read that GOOD things happen in 3's.
I just posted about the addition of 2 crazy families to New City - guys leaving their jobs or their homes in order to serve at New City - guys with YEARS of church experience. Well, today I got a call from the third crazy dude heading our way! He and his wife are putting their house up for sale ASAP - they are talking to some schools about a job for Mrs. Crazy here in Macon and today he told his pastor and other staff members what their plans were. That pretty well seals it.
So - they are working on a timeline and shooting for the first of the year.
When they go public (at their current church and with family) I'll post a name and pic for Mr and Mrs Crazy (III).

Halloween Downtown Style

Check out the Thriller Halloween Parade from 06. This should be fun to watch - they have been practicing for weeks! Come catch Under the Gazebo at the 567 - we'll take a break for some THRILLA action and then get back to it.

It is Official - They Must Be Crazy

So - what does a church planter do when he is completely overwhelmed, treading water, and unsure of which way to turn because life is soooooo busy? Pray for help!

So - I have been - we have been - and God is answering. He has answered through a lot of great people in the church doing a lot of good stuff - AND he is answering by making some people CrAzY!

Like - The McConnells

A family of 9

Moving in January from Spokane WA (yes that is WASHINGTON - as in Washington STATE) - and YES - that is 9, NINE) The pic is Patrick and his sons, Caleb, Noah, and Josiah. I couldn't find the whole family - maybe they don't all fit in one picture? They are awesome! 3 Boys from Ethiopia, 2 Girls from Washington, 2 Girls natural and from GA - what a great mix.

Patrick will continue in Macon as the Executive Director of Grace Giving International and work for NCCd for FREE. He is already working - at least in his head - thinking about areas of need, priorities... Patrick will serve as the HOW Pastor - that is, he will work hard at figuring out all of the "how do we" questions. Patrick has served as a pastor in 2 different churches and in numerous capacities. Pray for Jennifer, Patrick and the crew! Pray that God keeps them a little crazy!

And then there are the CrAzY VerSteegs!

Tyler, Sarah, and little V on the way!

Tyler has served in a staff capacity at 2 churches here in Macon. He has been a youth pastor and has led worship and overseen multiple bands. Tyler has resigned from a paying church job so he could help with this NON-PAYING church job! Their last Sunday is this Sunday, and then they're here!

Pray that they stay crazy too!

Crazy.

Give A Peach

Brooks Hinton came up with our promotional poster for the big city-wide food drive. Give A Peach is a play on ABB's Eat A Peach album.
Our partnership work hasn't been done yet, we'll be working to spread the word all over the city. So - bring canned goods to our service Sunday or drop them off some other time at the Cox Capitol Theater or the 567.


Click here for a recent 13 WMAZ story on the critical need.

Lead Conference

It has been quite a week! I headed out of town right after church Sunday for the l o o o o n g drive to St Louis. Cameron, Jason, Heath and I picked up Matt Adair in Atl and we met Paul coming in from the airport, and Patrick and Noah coming in from Washington state. We all made the long trek to attend LEAD inthe church for the city - a conference and A-29 Boot Camp combo.
IT HAS BEEN A PACKED WEEK
I will give some insight from conference speakers in the next couple of days... but we have heard from some great guys a lot that applies very strongly to our church and city! i am really excited about our future in Macon and as a church...more later!

Engaging the Poor - 2

I have just gotten off the phone with The Big House Foundation. This is a group turning the Allman Brothers old home into an Allman Brothers Museum - the Big House Museum. The call was in response to a critical need in the community. Macon's food banks are running out of food. People are already being turned away and food is being strictly rationed. So, The Big House Foundation would like to partner with New City Church, the 567, and the Capitol Theater to launch a city-wide food drive. We will work next week to grow our city partners and Launch the drive the first of November with a Press Conference.
Of all the churches downtown, it looks like New City will lead the drive and distribution.

Engaging the Poor

Our downtown location offers New City Church some incredible opportunities to be and proclaim the Gospel. One of those opportunities comes in engaging the poor of our city.

Currently we have a number of people ministering to the poor - with the Macon Rescue Mission, in a Sunday afternoon meal in Third Street Park, and through countless encounters on our streets. Engaging the poor in our city raises some tough questions:

Is giving money to someone begging the best way to convey the love of Jesus and the Gospel?

Or, does it simply enable the cycle of poverty and dependence to continue?

Are to give without question?

Or is stewardship a part of the equation?

How can we best bring honor and glory to those who beg of us?

Tough Questions - and questions we are beginning to ask in leadership and work through as a gospel community. Look for more info coming soon and feel free to share your thoughts.

Here's a thought from Jessica Scott's blog - a New City downtowner and a nurse:

Words of Wisdom
"you can touch the sick, the leper and believe that it is the body of Christ you are touching, but it is much more difficult when these people are drunk or shouting to think that this is Jesus in His distressing disguise. How clean and loving our hands must be to be able to bring that compassion to them."

~ No Greater Love, Mother Teresa

We had three homeless people ask us for money Wednesday night downtown. I had a patient curse at me this week and another drunk schizophrenic threaten to kill someone in the ER waiting room. My roommate literally washed a homeless patient's feet because they smelled so bad.

I was fighting to remember......"whatever you do to the least of these my brothers, you do it to me." Matt 25:40

MCs Have Begun

It is official - Our Missional Communities have begun to gather!
So far only 2 of our 7 have met, but the stories are already beginning to flow:
Greg and Wendy's MC hung out for over 4 hours on their first night - eating, talking, praying, and enjoying getting to know one another. Greg said he was a little uncertain and apprehensive about how well things would go he was amazed at how at ease and comfortable everyone in the group was and he and Wendy are excited about their next gathering!
Clint and Helen had a full house last night. Like Greg there was some apprehension about gathering with a group of people that you don't really know. Clint said it didn't take long for that to diminish! Everyone just 'clicked' together! There was great discussion, several people sharing some tough life struggles and an incredible time of loving one another and praying together. One person from the group told me this morning that she could really sense the Spirit joining this MC and cannot wait to see all that God is going to do in and through their group.

No pressure intended toward the other MCs gathering this week - hopefully an encouraging post instead. Know that you are being prayed for this week!

Vision Caught

I met with one of our building's owners today - he wanted to run by me the possibility of giving (that's GIVING) the church part ownership of the 567 as a contribution. He explained that he doesn't normally give to churches, but felt like our mission and vision for the church and it city should be supported. That's the Vision Caught - caught from a different perspective. Here is a guy who doesn't attend our services, has met with me only a few times, yet sees the transforming impact we are trying to have on our city! No details on the building, just a conversation - more to come as he talks with attorneys and cpas. Yeah - that's crazy.

I stopped him during the conversation and explained that we have really outgrown the 567 and are not interested in buying the building. He stopped me and said, that doesn't matter. The church would simply own a portion of this building until it is sold - in fact, we could do what we wanted with our portion of ownership.

Then we went for a walk around the block. I shared with him our vision and future space needs. I told him about a building 5 or 6 blocks away that looked like a great fit. He didn't like it. Not the building, but the location. He wants us right in the heart of the city. And that's where e want to be. So we talked about a number of building possibilities. BIG buildings for a BIG future in downtown Macon. That's really all I can say on that one - we aren't rushing anywhere. We have a great home for now - but who knows what God might do in the future!?!?

All cool stuff - a great meeting. But the best part of the meeting came when I got to answer 2 questions from a guy who grew up Episcopal and attends church twice a year to make his mom feel better:

1) Is Ghandi in heaven today - why or why not?

2) Why do you think your church is growing so fast?

The answer is the same - the Gospel! I hope that vision is caught as well.

This Sunday with Jonah

Week 3 of We Are Jonah
From the belly of a great fish Jonah cries out and God intervenes to have Jonah released from the fish.
This week - Repentance and Mercy

DGM Interview - Total Church

The following interview may be helpful in understanding New City's Missional Communities.

Ordinary Life with Gospel Intentionality
September 24, 2008
By: David Mathis
A pair of Brits have a provocative book appearing in the States this month. Tim Chester and Steve Timmis published Total Church in the UK last year, and enough readers here have found it helpful to prompt Crossway Books and Mark Driscoll’s Resurgence ministry to pick up the title in the Re:Lit series. You can watch Tim Chester introduce the book at Crossway's blog.

Chester’s and Timmis’s refrain for what they are advocating in the book is “ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” They make a case for the church’s need to exercise “dual fidelity” to the content of the spoken gospel and the context of a relational community.

Tim Chester kindly agreed to answer a few questions below for the DG blog.

DG: Tim, what do you and Steve Timmis mean by the title Total Church?

Tim Chester: The phrase is actually adapted from the world of football (or soccer in the States!). “Total football” was a style of play associated with the Dutch international side in the 1970s.
“Total church” is our way of capturing the idea that church is not one activity in our lives. Church isn’t a meeting you attend or a building your enter. It’s our identity, our community, our family. It’s the context for the totality of the Christian life.

DG: How would you summarize the message of the book?

TC: Total Church argues for two core principles: We need to be gospel-centered and community-centered.
Being gospel-centered means we’re word-centered (because the gospel is a message; it is good news), and it means being mission-centered (because the gospel is a message to be proclaimed; it is good news).
I think most conservative evangelicals are strong on this. But we also need to be community-centered. The Christian community is the biblical context for evangelism, discipleship, pastoral care, social involvement, and so on. That doesn’t mean meetings. It means the shared life of the community.
One of our catchphrases is “ordinary people living ordinary life with gospel intentionality.” It means doing the chores, having meals, watching sports, and so on with an intention to talk about Jesus, to pastor one another with the gospel, and to share that gospel with unbelievers.

DG: At several points in the book, you mention the value of hospitality. Do you see this virtue as lacking in the church today, and is there is an especially significant need for it in the 21st-century church?

TC: Here’s what I think is the key issue. In the book, we tell the story of a young man who invited us to do some street preaching with him. When we said it wasn’t really the way we did things, he clearly doubted our courage and commitment.
We began to talk instead about a whole life lived in mission and community, in which we were always looking to build relationships and always looking to talk about Jesus. By the end of the conversation, he admitted he wasn’t sure if he was up for that.
He wanted evangelism you could do for two hours on a Saturday afternoon and then switch off. Tick. Job done for the week. He didn’t want a missional lifestyle.
I think that’s the issue with hospitality. People want to put church and evangelism into a slot in the schedule. But we need to be sharing our lives with others—with shared meals and open homes. That can be demanding, but it’s also wonderfully enriching.

DG: The book’s double emphasis on both gospel-speaking and relationship-cultivating is rare. What or who have been some of your most memorable influences on this “dual fidelity” to gospel and community?

TC: Our main influence has been The Crowded House which Steve and I lead together. We began as one household congregation and have grown into a family of small church planting networks. Some of our congregations meet in homes; others gather on Sunday in a building but function as smaller missional communities throughout the week.
Although the book isn’t the story of The Crowded House, it does capture a lot of what we’ve learned doing mission and community together.
We’re Reformed and evangelical, so many of our key influences are fairly predictable—the Reformers, the Puritans, and, more recently, people like John Stott, John Piper, Tim Keller, and the guys from CCEF.
In terms of our understanding of community and mission, the evangelical Anabaptists have been an important influence, and we’ve also tried to learn from the experience of missions around the world.
Individual writers include Roland Allen, Robert Banks, and Lesslie Newbigin.
Another important influence has been biblical theology (through people like Graeme Goldsworthy, Ed Clowney, and Elmer Martins). Biblical theology is important because people often have a very individualistic view of the gospel: “It’s all about me and God.” And an individualistic view of the gospel leads to an individualistic view of mission. But the Bible is the story of God saving a people, a community, a new humanity.

DG: Can you give us some idea what being gospel-centered and community-centered looks like in practice?

TC: Let’s take evangelism. We encourage one another to build relationships with people and share the gospel. But we also encourage one another to introduce people to the Christian community.
That doesn’t necessarily mean inviting them a church meeting. It means welcoming them into the network of believing relationships by inviting them to the cinema, to go shopping, to a meal—Christians and unbelievers together.
Jesus said all men will know we are his disciples by our love for one another. We want people to see that love—to see the gospel-shaped relationships of the Christian community.
Or let’s take pastoral care. We often have a very professional approach to pastoral care—it’s something done by a pastor or a counselor. But Paul tells the whole Christian community in Ephesus to speak the truth to one another in love.
The context is the gospel community, and the content is the gospel word. So we try to create a culture in which we encourage one another to challenge, comfort, console, exhort, and rebuke one another with the gospel in the context of ordinary life.
If I’m moaning, someone will challenge me to find joy in Christ. If I’m anxious, someone will exhort me to trust in my heavenly Father’s care. If I’m ashamed, someone will comfort me with the grace of God.
It might be another leader; it might be a new Christian. It might be in a scheduled meeting; it might be as we tend someone’s garden together. It’s all about ordinary life with gospel intentionality.

New City a "Highlighted Downtown Business" (2)

Today was New Town Macon's Annual Meeting. I and a host of downtowners attended - elected officials, business owners, media... The meeting was a celebration of the past year (18 new businesses opened) as well as a preview of several things in the works (over 100 new apartments in the near future with more after that - recent studies suggest that downtown could have 189 new residents per year for the next 5 years) - exciting things ahead!

Included in the 4 page color booklet of info was the 567 logo and the following paragraph:

One of our business success stories is New City Church, which meets at th Cox Capitol Theater. Parishioners come from all over Middle Georgia - Forsyth, Milledgeville, Warner Robins, Lizella, and Macon - to worship. In fact, part of the church's vision is to encourage members to move their families or businesses to the city, and four members recently moved downtown to be closer to the church. New City also runs the 567 on Cherry Street as a gallery and "listening room" for local artists and poetry reading.

New City was the only 'business' highlighted. That is really exciting - especially when you consider we are less than 1 year old and we're a church. On top of that I was approached by someone I had never met who wanted to talk with me about our volunteering to help with some downtown projects. She and I talked about Missional Communities, Our worship gatherings, music, and the fact that she and her young family had no church. Both grew up in church but have been away for years. She was interested in a visit. Do our presence, activities, and the 567 really make a difference downtown? Probably bigger than most of you think!

We Are Jonah, Pursued

Last week we kicked off our series - We Are Jonah by looking at the first few verses and discovering several ways that we indeed are like Jonah - Called to God's Mission, Called to a city that serves as a regional center, and like Jonah we have been running in rebellion.
This week we'll see Jonah caught in a great storm and deceived by sin. We'll see that the pattern of running isn't new - it started in the garden. But so did something else... something beautiful - the relentless pursuit of a loving and merciful God. We are Jonah - pursued.

Catch Last Week's Message Here.
Tune in for this week's Live Stream Here.

Repent 23 Times

Immediately following our closing prayer on Sunday I was stopped by one of our New City kids - Autumn Ray.
Do you know how many times you said "repent" today? She said.
No, I replied, I really don't.
23 times! She said as she pointed to the piece of paper she had kept track on! 23 times you said repent!
That works out to be about once every 2 minutes!

Our Saviors

Currently being debated is a Bill that is said to be our savior from financial disaster. Each Presidential candidate claims he will lead this charge to rescue us. Each candidate says that he will be the one to end waste and work for 'Main Street' (that's you and me).
So did you see what was added to the Bill of Salvation?

SEC. 503. EXEMPTION FROM EXCISE TAX FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROWS DESIGNED FOR USE BY CHILDREN. (a) In General.--Paragraph (2) of section 4161(b) is amended by redesignating subparagraph (B) as subparagraph (C) and by inserting after subparagraph (A) the following new subparagraph: ``(B) EXEMPTION FOR CERTAIN WOODEN ARROW SHAFTS.--Subparagraph (A) shall not apply to any shaft consisting of all natural wood with no laminations or artificial means of enhancing the spine of such shaft (whether sold separately or incorporated as part of a finished or unfinished product) of a type used in the manufacture of any arrow which after its assembly-- ``(i) measures \5/16\ of an inch or less in diameter, and ``(ii) is not suitable for use with a bow described in paragraph (1)A).

Apparently a pretty big part of our economic problems has come from a 'Certain Excise Tax For Certain Wooden Arrows Designed For Children.' Who would have ever guessed that these wooden arrows for children would cause such problems? I knew they might 'put an eye out' but never guessed the huge impact that they might have on the banking industry. I guess I am thankful that we have such good and honest men and women fighting for us 'Main Streeters' in Washington DC, and thankful for their great wisdom and intelligence (sarcasm intended).

We Are Jonah

This Sunday we begin a new sermon series in the book of Jonah entitled: we are Jonah.
I have seen the Vegie Tales version of Jonah, I've sat through Sunday School lessons on Jonah, but I cannot remember hearing a sermon series from the book - so I am excited.
I am also amazed at just how much like Jonah we really are! This week we'll intro the series and look at the first few verses. We'll answer the question, 'is Jonah simply a myth or is this the telling of a true story?' And we'll see how we run just like Jonah ran.
Hope to have the live streaming video back up this week. For those unable to join us in person, try the New City Church website for a feed.