Northminster has begun the transition to become a Missional Church and is rethinking what it means to be a church in the world today

As we all learned from the song “We Are the Church”, by Richard K. Avery and Donald S. Marsh, as children growing up, “The church is not a building, the church is not a steeple, the church is not a resting place; the church is a PEOPLE.”

This new logo is a graphic representation of that fact and to help identify Northminster as the loving, compassionate, caring body of Christ that our world so desperately needs today.

This past weekend we had our Utah Reunion Overnight from Saturday to Sunday. We had a nice time of fellowship and watched two movies. On Sunday we had a wonderful guest musician, Haley Montgomery, who volunteers with our Young Life group for different events. Monday night we had campaigners. Volunteer leader Mark Presley gave a talk on Matthew 13- the farmer scattering seed. We discussed in small groups what it means to be on the good soil. I had a great, lively discussion with the girls group about why bad things happen, our identity in Christ, and how we live.

Wednesday we had lunch club at University City high school. About 25 kids came this week, ate pizza, and heard about John 10. Jesus is our Good Shepherd, and came to give us life to the full. Wednesday evening we had Wyldlife campaigners. We still have a small Wyldlife group, with plans to start a lunch club at CPMA Middle School where we will meet new kids. I feel like this smaller group we have right now is a blessing- being able to really pour into the kids’ lives. The students who come now will be like student leaders as our group grows, since they are being poured into right now. Stephen Wescott, who is a volunteer leader and a junior at Madison High school, led the talk about forgiveness. He used scripture from Matthew 18 — the story of the unforgiving debtor.

Thursday at lunch club there were 25 kids and 5 leaders, plus Mr. Runyan. Mr. Runyan is an amazing man of God. Mark Presley gave a talk on prayer from Matthew 6. At the end, I saw one student go over to Mr. Runyan and ask for him to pray personally for him. Mr. Runyan laid hands on this young man, and prayed for him. God is alive at Madison! We made a list of prayer requests in the big group, took a few minutes of silent prayer. We will keep bringing the list back each week, adding to it, reflecting on how God is answering our prayers- just not always the answer we would like to receive. He is faithful.

Today we will head up to Oakbridge for the Women’s Retreat! There are a few women from Northminster Presbyterian Church going, 4 Clairemont Young Life leaders, and 13 Clairemont Young Life kids. The leaders and kids are going to do work crew for the weekend. This is completely volunteered time! They will be working very hard washing dishes in the dining hall, serving tables, cleaning up, then setting up all over again for the next meal. They might get a couple hours of free time on Saturday, in which they will do a study on Philippians 2. This weekend they will learn what it means to put others first and serve joyfully! The students who have done work crew before said it was a great experience. I am so proud of them.

I am also very thankful in God has answered my prayers and our budget needs for CA478. Thank you all who have been so supportive of this ministry- I hope that you feel it is your ministry, too.

God Bless you!

Chelsea

Sermon by Markus Watson on February 17, 2008

This is the first sermon in the series titled “An Alternate Reality”

Theme - Most of the time when we read the Beatitudes we think that Jesus is prescribing a certain type of behavior that is worthy of blessedness. But is that really what Jesus is doing? I don’t think so. I think Jesus is speaking to people who are “poor in spirit,” “mourning,” “meek,” and so forth, and is telling them that the kingdom of heaven belongs even to them. According to the world’s reality, these people are losers. But according to the reality of the kingdom of heaven, they are the most blessed of all!

The sermon may be downloaded to your local machine by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac) on the link above and saving the mp3 file to your local hard drive.

The following video by Markus Watson to the song Breath Deep (the Breath of God), by Lost Dogs, was used to open the worship services.

The music was provided by Haley Montgomery in our contemporary worship service and by both Haley and our choir in our heritage service.

The following video by Markus Watson to the song, I’ve Always Loved You, by Third Day was used to open our Ash Wednesday Service.

Northminster now has a full suite of on-line web based church calendars. There are now three on-line calendars to be found in the Navigation links on the left side of any web page on this site.

The Church Calendar is the place to go for anything you want to know about what is going on in the life of the church. This calendar is in addition to the Young Life and WyldLife Calendars which have been on-line for some time now.

These calendars are the place to go for anything you would like to know about what’s happening, or when it’s happening, in the life of the church, now and in the future.

Sermon by Markus Watson on February 10, 2008

This is the fourth and last sermon in the series titled “Wow! That’s ‘Great!’”

Theme – Jesus isn’t asking a question; he’s making a statement: “You will be my witnesses.” The question is what kind of witnesses will we be: friendly or hostile? The other question is will we be witnesses in all those places we’ve been called to witness: in our own community (“Jerusalem”), in our region (“Judea and Samaria”), and in other parts of the world (“the ends of the earth”)? As a church we’re called to be witnesses in all these places.

As part of this sermon series, Northminster has been praying for those in the community surrounding the church. The worship service was opened with the following video clip from YouTube by Tim Hawkins on the subject of prayer.

The sermon may be downloaded to your local machine by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac) on the link above and saving the mp3 file to your local hard drive.It is also recommended that you give Juice a try. Juice is an open source podcast receiver, allowing users to capture and listen to podcasts.

Sermon by Markus Watson on February 3, 2008

This is the third sermon in the series titled “Wow! That’s ‘Great!’”

Theme – There are essentially four commands in Jesus’ final words to his disciples in Matthew 28:16-20: Go, Make disciples, Baptize, and Teach. The problem is that most churches don’t go; we try to get people to show up. We don’t make disciples, we try to get people who are already disciples to come to our church and maybe help them grow spiritually. We don’t baptize, at least not by profession of faith (we do baptize infants, but that’s different theologically—it’s a covenantial thing). We do teach, but we teach the wrong thing. We teach a lot of doctrine, theology, etc. But Jesus said to teach people “to obey” what he commanded us; we need to teach obedience. We need to go, make disciples, baptize, and teach.

This sermon may be downloaded to your local machine by right clicking (or control clicking on a Mac) on the link above and saving the mp3 file to your local hard drive.

It is recommended that you give Juice a try. Juice is an open source podcast receiver, allowing users to capture and listen to podcasts.

Please join us this Sunday morning, February 3rd, for the completion of our 4 week CD series on Basic Judaism for Believing Christians. This class will be meeting at 1 p.m. in the Fireside Room at the church and everyone is welcome to attend.

On Friday, February 15th, the Mariners will be taking a trip to visit the Marine Corps Museum at MCRD followed by a pizza feast at Northminster. Anyone wishing to participate should meet in the church parking lot at 1:30 p.m. on Friday February 15th to carpool.

We hope to see you there!

Northminster would like to thank all of the people who volunteered to help our with our Interfaith Shelter Network rotation at Clairemont Lutheran Church last month. The meals you provided were wonderful, the overnight hosts were superb and we had more than enough help, food and supplies for all of our guests.

From all of us at Northminster and the residents of the shelter, we wish you a Hearty THANK YOU!!