Our Approach to Church

It is clear that God has been using the universal church over the last 2,000+ years to build His kingdom here on earth.  And so while developing our church’s vision and approach to church, we were led back to the Bible to re-examine how it all began in the early church: to see how God led them in their approach to life and ministry.  What we saw were clear examples of the things God wanted us to address in our church and the surrounding community.  Taking these insights and truths from the church in Acts and the Bible, we reconfigured them for our local and modern context.  Below is a summary of some of the key aspects of NMCC.

For more on two core component of New Mercy, see Team-Based Staff and Pillar Ministry Structure.

Holistic Approach

God did not create us solely as spiritual beings.  Each of us is a complex matrix of the physical, emotional, social, and spiritual. All of these are intertwined, and each affects the others.  This is why we see Jesus, in the Bible, ministering to all areas of people’s lives – he heals bodies, restores people who are estranged socially, and embraces the emotionally scarred.  It is clear that Bible teaches the church also is to support the multi-faceted needs of believers.  To realize this aspect of the church, we have built ministries (and will continue to build more) that support the physical, financial, emotional, mental, spiritual and social needs of individuals and families.

Community Focus

While we seek to create community within the walls of our church, our commitment to community extends past our physical walls.  We are dedicated to dwelling in the surrounding community and serving its citizens and social structures – to love and serve our actual neighbors.  We hope to do this financially, but also through relationships, programs and the professional resources, services and assistance we can provide to benefit the larger community.

Team-based Leadership

There is no question – Jesus Christ is the head of the church and our desire is to follow him and become more like him.  But too often in churchs, the body reflects the strengths and weaknesses of its most senior leader.  As a result, NMCC will be led by a team of multiple co-pastors who will work in conjunction with senior lay-leaders.  This team-based leadership structure will be configured to maximize each leader’s strengths while overcoming their weaknesses.  Not only will this structure provide accountability but will also serve as a support group for those pastors and leaders, which is absent in many models of church leadership today.  We believe this model will achieve better overall health for the church.

Missional

We exist to glorify God and to participate in Christ’s work through the redemptive gospel which transforms all aspects of peoples’ lives outside the walls of our church, locally and abroad.  Being missional is a lifestyle to which all Christians are called.  As a result, we at New Mercy are always trying to find the most relevant ways to evangelize and share the Gospel, even if it means doing things differently or breaking norms.  And we seek these new and innovative ways to reach out to the unchurched and broken of the world not for the sake of just trying to be radical, creative or relevant – but because we believe the Gospel of Jesus’ love and grace is the truth of God across time, culture, language and tradition.