Monday, September 26, 2011

Community Matters



Who benefits most from your team or session mission? How much more could be realized if new partnerships were nurtured the community at large, not just the "faith" community? Our newly emerging Newark Presbytery Community Transformation Corporation is redoubling its efforts to bless our neighbors. By engaging in new ministries sited at our existing properties, opportunities for sustainable initiatives will transform not merely the host church, but help reconnect and empower new relationships and new futures.

A congregation must not seek to experience health and vitality if the community around the congregation is not included in that same experience.
Newark Presbytery, Elizabeth Presbytery, and Palisades Presbytery have been exploring how realigning our resources could lead to new health, growth, and vitality of all our congregations. We ask God to use us to bless the 4.5 million people that live within our bounds. Imagine… 28,000 plus Presbyterians (our tribe) discovering new, innovative, authentic, and tangible ways to demonstrate God's love in the name of Jesus Christ to the millions of our neighbors (God's tribe). Now, that's a really something that's worth exploring.
Throughout the Synod and national church, God's listening people are setting aside preconceived, ineffective notions, self-interest, and former ways of being the Body of Christ so that more and more people experience joy and abundant living.

After all, our mission is to resonate and represent the love God has demonstrated for the whole world. Community matters. What matters to your church?

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