New Day Christian Church: About Us

Loving God, Loving People, Doing Life Together

Our motto is drawn from three passages of scripture:

Jesus replied: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." -Matthew 22:37-40 (NIV)

Loving God is the starting point for everything we do. It is our love for God that will distinguish who we are and what we do. We recognize that there are no perfect people and that none of us is perfect in our love for God. This motivates us to grow to know God better and to grow to be more like Him. It is our love for God that provides the motivation and the energy to love people. Growing in our love for God is often called discipleship and involves the development and practice of a wide variety of spiritual disciplines. As each person is unique, the expression of those spiritual disciplines will be unique. We know we will never be done because of the challenge of the word "All".

Loving people is the expression of our love for God. We learn to love each other in community within the body through generous applications of God’s grace in our relationships with one another. We do not compromise truth and recognize that truth is heard best when delivered with love, an honest and visible desire for the best for the other person. We recognize that the greatest need of people outside the body of Christ is to come to know and love God. We believe that the best way to help people accept God’s love is through loving and growing relationships with members of Christ’s body. Loving relationships may involve helping to meet people’s needs for a long time before they are ready to hear the truth. Loving people involves both grace and truth, and we believe that grace must come before truth to reach our community.

They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved. -Acts 2:42-47 (NIV)

Doing life together is how we show the world around us what loving God and loving people really looks like. We are seeking opportunities to share our lives together outside our Sunday celebration service. We are just beginning to learn how to do this as we transition from small groups focused on prayer and Bible study to life groups that increase the connectedness between members of the group. Our desire is for this community to be visible and open so that those outside of Christ can explore a relationship with Him in many different ways beyond our Sunday morning services.

Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." -Matthew 28:18-20 (NIV)

Our goal is to make disciples, because that is what we have been commanded to do. Our strategy is to use a relational approach to reach that goal. We want people to get connected to God’s Word, but recognize that in our community people need a relational bridge to get over the chasm created by prejudice and misunderstanding.