Much to Celebrate - New City turns 4!

New City Church turns 4

January 2008 - New City Church held its first weekly gathering at The Cox Capitol Theater... it seems like yesterday in so many ways.  Who would show up?  Would we receive enough in offerings to rent the facilities for another week?  Could our volunteers set up and tear down and man all of the stations, not just once but every week?  Could we really do this?  Those and a thousand similar questions.
Well, we did it - purely by God's great grace!
Over these 4 years we have seen some amazing fruit - marriages saved and families restored; homeless addicts healed; de-churched re-churched, unbelievers becoming believers, mended families, lots of new children (probably as many adopted as born!), and a great impact through us and The 567 on our downtown community... all by God's great grace.
Just over 4 years ago 40 people (including kids) believed that God wanted to do something through a new church in Macon - one of the most churched cities in the US.  Together we dreamed of seeing the gospel radically impact lives - we dreamed of transformed people, a transformed city, and beyond.  More than a Sunday gathering, we dreamed of true community - people doing life together - seeking, striving, growing, serving, loving - in true community.
Today those 40 have become well over 600 - today that 1 gathering has turned into 3 congregations in 3 cities - today the dream of community has turned into 15 Missional Communities with 5 about to plant and more in the planning stages - today our home base is a 12,000 sf building in the heart of downtown that we renovated - it serves as not only the home of New City Church but also as a true community center for downtown Macon... all by God's great grace.
Don't get the idea that it has all been easy and always beautiful, it hasn't.  Sadly over 4 years we have lost many of our core families and friends for various reasons - some destroyed by sin, others discontent with the difficulties of planting, and a few who realized they weren't dreaming the same dreams that we were.  Each has been painful. But God's great grace has been sufficient.
We have much to celebrate at New City Church - downtown, Milledgeville, and Warner Robins... we have much more in mind for 2012... and by God's great grace we will be celebrating even more in January 2013! Thank you God for your great grace - thank you New City volunteers and missionaries for dreaming, believing, and working to see the gospel transform everything within your reach.

New City Planting makes the Paper

New City expands to WR, keeps focus on communities

By MICHAEL W. PANNELL - Sun News correspondent

(online article HERE)

Fifty families from Warner Robins and surrounding communities who were attending a Macon church were sent in August to start New City Church Warner Robins.

The group had been attending New City Downtown (Macon) and had already begun meeting during the week in area home groups they call missional communities.

On Aug. 14, they began a new congregation that meets Sunday evenings at 6 in another local church’s building, The River on U.S. 127 in Kathleen.

Patrick McConnell serves as pastor of the new church. He said New City Church Downtown was begun in Macon about four years ago by Keith Watson. New City Church Downtown, he said, committed itself to downtown revitalization economically, in the arts and spiritually. Not only does the church meet downtown, it also offers start-up business space and operates The 567, a gallery and music space.

“Any time we had events in Macon, people from Warner Robins drove there,” McConnell said. “Since our focus is community, we were defeating ourselves going to Macon and not investing here. New City Downtown always had church planting in mind. Having a good core group of people living in Warner Robins -- then the offer to use The River as a meeting place -- made the time seem right.”

McConnell said there is a New City church plant in Milledgeville and one beginning in Albany.

New City is associated with the Acts 19 Network, a network of churches and church planters based in the Pacific Northwest.

McConnell, 38, said he is more accurately the campus pastor for the Warner Robins church. He said Watson is considered lead pastor for the churches in Macon, Warner Robins, Milledgeville and Albany. He said all of the pastors are elders in New City and share preaching responsibilities.

Though McConnell said the Warner Robins church will not necessarily locate in what would be considered old downtown, the commitment to community is still there.

“We have three missional communities in Warner Robins now and plan to have a fourth this month, then a fifth around March or April,” he said. “We do have Bible studies in these groups, but they’re not just for that. They are people on a mission to do life together and serve the wider community with the gospel and by being good neighbors.”

He said one group is partnering with foster care families in Houston County to provide respite and general help. In another group, one of the leaders is an Air Force officer and they help military families with deployed spouses.

“When you look at New City Church Downtown and the heartbeat there, you jump to arts and business,” McConnell said. “Here it looks a lot different because it’s just not the same. We still want to be a light, but our missional communities are doing different things throughout the community. We all share the same philosophy to impact our cities through the gospel.”

McConnell and his wife, Jennifer, moved from Macon to Warner Robins with their six children to lead the church. McConnell serves the church part-time and works full-time for Geico.

He said New City Church Warner Robins plans to reach certain goals before a full-time pastor comes aboard.

“Jennifer is from Macon and I’m from Sharpsburg,” McConnell said. “We met while attending college, married while I was serving in the Air Force and wound up in Spokane, Wash. When I got out of the Air Force, I knew I wanted to be a pastor and went through a pastoral training program at a church affiliated with John McArthur’s Grace Community Church. I did youth work and co-pastored.”

McConnell said he also worked with an adoption agency and later became executive director of a nonprofit agency called Grace Giving International, a group working with orphans in Ethiopia and Uganda.

The McConnells have two biological children and have adopted four. They moved to Macon to be part of New City Downtown a year after it started.

“We believed in the vision of New City Church for church planting, verse-by-verse expository teaching of the Bible, the sovereignty of God and the missional aspect of the church. We don’t want to just serve an organization but rather we want to build relationships with people and let them see the affection we have for Jesus.”

Planting Again... in Macon

Things have been super busy - as usual!
We are working hard in Milledgeville and are excited that New City Church Milledgeville is moving to John Milledge Academy on January 15.  The move will provide them with enough space to go from 3 services to 1.  The move will also allow them to expand their mission and be much more inclusive of families... good stuff.

Warner Robins continues to grow and will be adding 1 new MC this month and possibly another around March.  We are planning for 2012 and hope to see a real push to grow our core and work toward launching Sunday morning services in our own space.

Downtown (Macon) is going great as well.  We sent out about 50 people in August of last year to Warner Robins and have seen our downtown attendance continue to grow - even averaging MORE in attendance in 2011 than 2010 even though we sent 50 people to start a new congregation.
AND
we are in the planning stages for a second site in Macon.  Crazy, I know.  We are praying and working toward the possibility of a January 2013 launch.  We have tons of unanswered questions and a lot that needs to happen before we could do it.


To help people understand our next Macon plant (WHY, HOW, WHAT...) and encourage other churches to take steps toward planting, I started a new blog - New City Planting .  Check it out and help plant churches!