An Update from the Pastoral Team
A Video Update from Josh and Kirk
(Audio-only and podcast versions are available here.)
New City Family,
We’re excited to share an update on our journey to plant a new church in partnership with Cole Community.
The elder teams from both of our churches met last week and voted enthusiastically to continue to move forward with this process to become a new church together. As we look ahead to our next steps, we want to begin to provide a framework for what we hope this new church will become.
Throughout the discernment process, we’ve sought prayer, counsel, and advice from people both inside and outside of our current church networks and partnerships. One of the new relationships we’ve formed as a part of these conversations is with a church planting network called Living Stones. Living Stones is specifically focused on developing a network of healthy local churches in the Mountain West, and they have written a robust articulation of core beliefs and ministry philosophy for the churches in their network that has been a helpful resource as we’ve discussed what the culture, values, and leadership structures of a new church could look like.
As we move forward, the elders of both churches have agreed to adopt the Living Stones guidelines as a blueprint for the new church we’re planting together. If you’re a part of New City, you’ll notice that their values and culture are similar to ours in many ways. Many aspects of their approach to church are likely to feel very familiar to you.
An additional non-negotiable for our two elder teams has been finding a network to partner with that would be new to both churches—something we could step into together, in addition to maintaining relationships with our existing networks and partnerships. As of last month, Living Stones has extended an invitation for us to officially join their network once the new church is established. This is a partnership that we believe will be a vital step toward becoming a long-term disciple-making presence in our city.
We encourage you to take some time to explore the Living Stones website to learn more about their vision and values—it offers a helpful window into the kind of church we’re working to become together. Josh and Kirk have also put together a video where they share more about these key updates and the heart behind this next step—we’d encourage you to check it out if you haven’t already. (You can also find audio-only and podcast versions here.)
After you’ve had a chance to watch the video and look through the linked resources, we’d appreciate it if you could take just a few minutes to fill out a short Google Form to help us get a better sense of your interest and engagement as we move forward in this process. As always, we’d also love to meet with you to talk individually if you have questions or concerns.
We are so grateful for each of you!
In Christ,
Josh, Heath, and Mitch
