The NewSong Vision

NewSong Vision Statement
January 2009

I’ve been at NewSong for 7 months now. Frances and I have settled down well here and that’s in no small measure due to the way many of you have gone out of your way to make us feel at home. We both want to say thank you so much.

I’ve had the opportunity to speak with some but not all of you individually; I’ve managed to get a flavour of some of our history and, most importantly, our recent history. I’ve tried to get an idea of where we’ve been as a church, before I can make any attempt at seeing where I think God is leading us.

So what makes NewSong distinctive?

Rhythms of Life

Contemporary worship, of a high standard.
Relevant preaching
High Multi-media content

Worship
Worship will always be a priority at NewSong, and to be able to maintain and expand upon the high standard of our worship will always remain high on my priorities.

Relevant Preaching
We live in an age where many churches have downgraded the preaching of God’s Word; and in my opinion, this is one of the main reasons why the church in Britain is in decline.
It’s one of the main ways that God speaks to us and to downgrade or water down, or over complicate God’s Word cuts off one of our primary forms of communication with God.
Preaching is my main spiritual gift, and under God and the leading of His Holy Spirit, the preaching of His word will continue to be primary in our worship services.

Multi-Media and the Arts
Drama has had, and will continue to have a high profile at NewSong worship services

Interaction between Church and Community.

(Maggie Bishton spoke at this point, outlining the excellent work achieved in the past to involve the Community in drama performances. She went on to announce that the musical “Oliver” was planned to be produced during 2009 for performance in March 2010.)

Children’s & Young People’s Work

James Thompson is now heading up our young people’s work. He is having a meeting with our existing leaders, and he hopes to sketch out soon, how he sees the way forward.

(James Thompson spoke at this point, outlining the excellent work, which had gone on in the past, and expressing the hope that everyone would wish to come together at a meeting to be arranged very shortly, at which firm plans for the future of the Children’s work would be agreed.)

I’ve made good contacts and have been involved with South Bromsgrove High School, assemblies, classes, North Bromsgrove High School Christian Union. I’ve also managed to pick up again the links we’ve had with Sidemoor First School in the past. I’ve been involved in several assemblies there and they had their Christmas Service here in church, last Christmas. They are keen to make this an annual event, and we are looking at more ways were we can input into the school. I’ve made contact with Parkside Middle School, and have a meeting with staff members there next week.

Our Community

NewSong is the fourth church that I have been privileged to lead, but it’s the first church where the majority of our members don’t live in the immediate locality of the church; what might be called in Anglican terms, our parish. In each of the churches I have helped lead there has always been a great involvement in and with the local community, and I see no reason why this should not be the case here. We have always opened our building for use by those who live locally and need facilities. In Stonehaven, we ran a local café, which employed local people, had a turnover in excess of 150K, and gave many a place to belong. We had a Far and Wide project similar to NewStarts. The charity shop associated with this raised and gave away in excess of a quarter of a million pounds to support outside projects both local and global, in the 10 years it has been in existence.

We are a gathered church, and personal involvement in our local community is made more difficult when a high percentage of our membership don’t live locally. Yet, NewSong has been, and will continue to be, the driving force behind all that has been done at NewStarts.

(Ian Axelsen spoke at this point, outlining the various strands of work that had been undertaken in the past, and which was now consolidated within the NewStarts Project. Ian went on to confirm that he would be anxious to develop new threads of community involvement at NewSong in the future, as opportunities presented themselves.)

The Present

Finance

For the year ending 31 March 2009, we are anticipating a loss of around 12K, which, co-incidentally, is about the cost of the replacement heating unit which we have had to have fitted. In 2009/10, we may be facing a deficit of around £15K-17K on current income and expenditure trends. This is something of which, as a church, we have to be aware. I know many of you are suffering because of the current financial downturn. I know that some jobs are under pressure, and that indeed some of you have lost jobs. But I want to ask all of you here this evening to examine your giving. When was the last time you did that? I’ll be saying a bit more about giving on 15th February when money and giving is the topic for the day. However, the church being able to pay for the existing ministry is of paramount importance.

Church Fabric

Another matter related to finance is that, in the next 5 years, we will have to spend a considerable amount on our building. The church here, if we were honest, is looking a bit tired.
Great work was done on the hall this year when a mission team from Indian Creek came over to help. The new rooms look great, but the rest of the hall is now really in need of work.

People

We have many, many, gifted people here at NewSong.
Some are using their God given gifts.
Some are waiting for an opportunity to use their God given gifts.
And some don’t know quite where they fit in at NewSong just yet.

My vision for NewSong is for it to become a church that is balanced in all the tasks that God requires from a church. These tasks are 5-fold in nature:

• Worship
• Fellowship
• Discipleship
• Ministry
• Evangelism

You’ll hear more about them, and read about them, when we look at 40 Days of Purpose during the Spring. My vision for NewSong is to grow our congregation in depth, as well as numerically, by producing steady growth in the five task areas.

Worship
1) The church exists to celebrate God’s presence . . .
By expressing our love for God with our whole life, not just on Sunday.

Fellowship
2) The church exists to incorporate people into God’s family . . .
By encouraging, and practically supporting those who belong to the body of Christ.

Discipleship
3) The church exists to educate God’s people . . .
By helping people to become more like Jesus in their thoughts, feelings and behaviour.

Ministry
4) The church exists to demonstrate God’s love . . .
By demonstrating God’s love to others by meeting their needs, and healing their hurts in Jesus’ name and by equipping God’s people for works of service.

Evangelism
5) The church exists to communicate God’s word . . .
By presenting the Good News about Jesus, in an appropriate way to those in our community.

The Elders are committed to introducing a church organizational system that will enable us to continually review and assess where we are in each of these areas. The details still have to be worked out, but it is likely that we will set up 5 working teams to look at priorities in the key areas of Worship, Fellowship, Discipleship, Ministry and Evangelism. A team leader, or enabler will lead these teams, and we need the best people we have to lead up these specific areas. It will be the responsibility of the lead person to develop a team of people, gifted in their task area, to evaluate and expand the church’s work in that area.

Ultimately, these groups will be accountable to the Elders, who are responsible for the spiritual direction of this church, but use of this system will broaden our leadership base. The team leaders will be provided with the authority and the resources to carry out the priorities in their sphere of ministry. The aim of this system is to ensure that we become a balanced church in each of the 5 areas of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism.

Other Areas

Structure
To enable us to grow we do need a bit more structure to our church. To increase discipleship,
to allow each of us to identify and use our spiritual gifts, and for us to effectively minister to one another and the people outside we need to be more structurally efficient.

Membership
We also need to look at membership. What does it mean to be a member of God’s family here at NewSong? What are the privileges, and responsibilities of membership?

Discipleship
We need to look at discipleship. How does each of us grow as a Christian? How do we grow in the areas of Bible reading, in prayer, in giving? We need a way of identifying and using our spiritual gifts in service

Fellowship
We need to look at fellowship. How do we better get to know and love one another?

Home Groups
We need an effective, church wide, diverse, home group structure. We need the structure that will enable us to invite every member to a home group.

Evangelism
We need to look are areas of evangelism that will effectively speak to those outside the church.
I am delighted to be your minister here.

The Future

Once I crack the language barrier, and understand what you are saying, (and you understand me), then I think we can move forward. I was asked by one member of NewSong (if we had members) where I would like the church to be in 5 years time? What areas of growth and work would I expect to see? The problem with doing this is that these are only my thoughts, and collectively as a church, we must determine where God is guiding us. The day of one-person ministry has gone but areas that we will have to look at over the next 5 years are:

Fabric
We will have to ensure that our present building is wind and watertight. It will need to be completely re-decorated. In the short term, I think a new building is unlikely. If numbers grow such that we need a new building, then we could look at this again, but capital expenditure on this scale is unlikely in the next 5 years.

Worship Services
As numbers increase, we need to be in a position to be able to offer two morning services. This would allow us to have a worshipping community of 250+.

Membership
We need to determine what being a member of NewSong means, what are the expectations, privileges and responsibilities.

Spiritual Maturity
We need to be able to guide both new and existing Christians on the path of Spiritual Maturity in the areas of Prayer, Bible Reading and Giving.

Fellowship
We need to look at ways of maintaining and developing our fellowship. We will need to develop a church wide system of diverse Home-groups.

Service
We need to help people identify and develop their spiritual gifts and encourage them and enable them to use them.

Evangelism
We need to develop ways of engaging with and sharing Jesus with those outside the church.

Children’s Work
We need to develop our existing children’s work, from birth to teens.

Serving our Community
- The work of the NewStarts project will continue to expand.
- The number of people gifted to do the work will determine involvement in other fields such as hampers, educational classes and new areas of service.

Conclusion

We need to be working where God is working. We need to develop new ministries only when we have the people with the gifting to do so. We are a small church, but I believe we have the potential to grow. I have no aspirations for us to be a “mega church”, but we do have the potential to be a very healthy church; a healthy church which will grow sufficiently to serve the ministries and areas of mission and evangelism where God is working throughout Bromsgrove and the surrounding area.

John Notman
27 January 2009