What We Have Done...
Following our initial movements into the Hill, we have continued to move our 'gospel beachhead' further into the heart of the Hill culture. This movement has focused on the following five areas:
First, we have not moved one inch from our 'bread and butter' Summer Impact Week in the Hill community via the soccer camp. We have completed 5 years of faithful service in the city. In fact, we expanded the missions week by involving other churches from around the country, added an Art Camp to the week, as well as a work project.
Second, we began to worship as a church in September of 2008. We started with approximately 18 adults and 15 children in regular attendance. Today, this community consists of approximately 30-35 adults and 15-20 children who are regular attenders. These numbers reflect communing members and their children, trained leaders and teachers, and now beginning to help our elder candidates .
Third, we have continued to maintain our outwardly focused disposition towards the Hill and the city of New Haven. Due to the needs of our community, much of our outreach and evangelism has been coupled with addressing some of the deficiencies in our neighborhood.
** We have hosted a 'Back-to-School' outreach the past 3 years, which has allowed us to connect with the community, while at the same time helping to provide school supplies.
** An annual Christmas Store to help with providing some affordable presents, while also being able to talk with folks about the Lord Jesus.
** Many other events have taken place to empower the church to reach out to its neighbors: community service days, prayer & survey walks, street preaching, evangelistic music concert, and investigative bible studies throughout the neighborhood.
Fourthly, a major principle driving all we have done is that of empowerment in the spiritual and life skills areas of life. Due to their socio-economic situations and destructive enabling of many social services, many of the poor have been robbed of their confidence to be able to believe that they can do anything about their plights. Therefore, we seek to add the empowerment component to everything that we do:
** we are training our congregation at every turn to carry the load of the ministry
** Cooperative Store that we started 3 years ago: we were able to start a store to sell second-hand clothes, furniture, household items, etc. This venture allowed us to provide jobs for our people, develop leaders, to share the gospel and give out information about our church. This monthly store is entirely ran by the people of the Hill!
The real proof is in the pudding: CHANGED LIVES!!! In an effort to give you a picture of some these 'changed lives', please consider reading the bio's of a few of our members on the side bar of this link ('What We Have Done'), which is at the top of the page, under the 'opportunities' link.
First, we have not moved one inch from our 'bread and butter' Summer Impact Week in the Hill community via the soccer camp. We have completed 5 years of faithful service in the city. In fact, we expanded the missions week by involving other churches from around the country, added an Art Camp to the week, as well as a work project.
Second, we began to worship as a church in September of 2008. We started with approximately 18 adults and 15 children in regular attendance. Today, this community consists of approximately 30-35 adults and 15-20 children who are regular attenders. These numbers reflect communing members and their children, trained leaders and teachers, and now beginning to help our elder candidates .
Third, we have continued to maintain our outwardly focused disposition towards the Hill and the city of New Haven. Due to the needs of our community, much of our outreach and evangelism has been coupled with addressing some of the deficiencies in our neighborhood.
** We have hosted a 'Back-to-School' outreach the past 3 years, which has allowed us to connect with the community, while at the same time helping to provide school supplies.
** An annual Christmas Store to help with providing some affordable presents, while also being able to talk with folks about the Lord Jesus.
** Many other events have taken place to empower the church to reach out to its neighbors: community service days, prayer & survey walks, street preaching, evangelistic music concert, and investigative bible studies throughout the neighborhood.
Fourthly, a major principle driving all we have done is that of empowerment in the spiritual and life skills areas of life. Due to their socio-economic situations and destructive enabling of many social services, many of the poor have been robbed of their confidence to be able to believe that they can do anything about their plights. Therefore, we seek to add the empowerment component to everything that we do:
** we are training our congregation at every turn to carry the load of the ministry
** Cooperative Store that we started 3 years ago: we were able to start a store to sell second-hand clothes, furniture, household items, etc. This venture allowed us to provide jobs for our people, develop leaders, to share the gospel and give out information about our church. This monthly store is entirely ran by the people of the Hill!
The real proof is in the pudding: CHANGED LIVES!!! In an effort to give you a picture of some these 'changed lives', please consider reading the bio's of a few of our members on the side bar of this link ('What We Have Done'), which is at the top of the page, under the 'opportunities' link.