On May 24-26, a team of twelve from Northminster traveled with Solana Beach Presbyterian Church to Tijuana, Mexico, to build homes for the needy through Amor Ministries. It was an incredible trip!

We built a home for the Contreras family. Alberto, the father, 42, is a taxi driver and earns only $80 per week. Marta, the mother, also 42, stays home and takes care of the their five children: Maria, Crecencia, Cenaida, Alberto, and Isaias.

It was truly a blessing for us to be able to work alongside this family to build them a small house. Nothing fancy—just something that will keep them dry and warm.

The entire team, made up of people mostly from Solana Beach Presbyterian Church, as well as Northminster and Village Community Presbyterian Church, built a total of twenty-two homes on that Memorial Day weekend!

If you’d like to see some pictures, you can view them by clicking here.

Below are two videos from this trip.

We’re excited to introduce that brand new Northminster Logo T-Shirt!!

Sizes “Child 2″ to XL are $10; sizes XXL to XXXXL are $12. If you’d like to order a t-shirt, call the church office: 858-490-3995. Order today to have yours for the church picnic on Sunday, June 29, 11:00 a.m.!

Kids, come join us for music, crafts, games, Bible drama, snacks, science experiments, video, new friends and more, while learning about Jesus’ power to help us to be helpful, be thankful, be brave, live forever and tell others about God.

July 28th to August 1st 9 am to noon

Pre-registration- starts on Sunday April 27th between our worship services.

FIRST COME, FIRST SERVED…..AND IT FILLS UP FAST!!!!

• $40 for first child in family, $30 for each additional child
• Potty trained 3 year olds to 5th graders are welcome
• 6th graders and above can volunteer

Registration forms and volunteer applications are available in the church office

If you would like to see what happened last year, go to our Photo Gallery,

About a month ago, we unveiled the brand new logo for Northminster Presbyterian Church. Since that time, there’s been all kinds of feedback. Some of you absolutely love it! Some of you don’t. And that’s ok.

What I’d like to do is walk you briefly through the logo and what is represented in it.

People: The center of focus in the logo is on the people—that is, us! We are Northminster Presbyterian Church. Our church building is conspicuously absent from the logo, and that is intentional, because, as we all learned in Sunday school as children: the church is not a building, the church is the people.

Diversity: As the people of God in this place and at this time, we want to reflect the diversity of our community. Do we reflect that diversity? Not yet. But as we continue to follow Christ, I believe that we will. My hope is that we become a church of all kinds of ethnicities, ages, personalities, etc. In the logo, this diversity is reflected by the many different shapes and sizes of the people.

Going: We are the sent people of God (John 17:21, Matthew 28:19)—sent into the world to love people, to share the good news about Jesus, and to invite them into His kingdom. There is a sense of movement in the logo. These people are not static or still; they are going!

Worshiping: While we are sent out to reach others, as God’s people we are also called to be a people that worships God. This is represented by the raised hands. This doesn’t mean that all our worship must involve raising our hands (though we should be free to do so if we desire). The image of raised hands, however, is a clear symbol of a worshiping people.

Local: We are a specific church (Northminster Presbyterian Church), in a specific place (Clairemont Mesa Blvd.), at a specific time (early 21st century). This doesn’t mean we won’t reach out to other parts of the world (in fact, we should!), but it’s important to recognize that God has put us here and now for a reason. God is at work in our community here and now, and as God’s people we are called to be on mission with Him here and now. The local nature of our church is represented by the hill—the mesa—on which the people are standing.

Some of you have also noticed that the word “Presbyterian” is nowhere to be found in the logo. Why? Have we changed our name? No, we haven’t. We are still Northminster Presbyterian Church. And what about the words, “Christ’s Church on the Mesa”? This is not a name change; it’s a tag line. Simply a descriptive statement (hopefully somewhat catchy!)—that we, the people of God in this location, belong to Christ.

As to the question of why the word, “Presbyterian,” has been left out, this was an evangelistic decision more than anything else. We live in a world that has quickly become “post-denominational.” This doesn’t mean that denominations will cease to exist, but that name-identification will no longer be important as people choose which church to join. In fact, in a world in which institutions are viewed with increasing skepticism, words like “Baptist,” “Lutheran,” “Episcopalian,” “Presbyterian”—these are all increasingly thought of as institutions and, hence, not be trusted (you’ll notice that Saddleback Church in Orange County never advertises the fact that it belongs to the Southern Baptist denomination). In fact, at its March meeting, the Presbytery of San Diego passed a report from a team called The Way Forward Work Group in which the presbytery has committed to “Lead as a Presbytery in a Post-Denominational Setting as we Create a New Way of Being Presbytery.”

We live in a new—and I dare say exciting—world! A world full of new opportunities for reaching people with the love of God. As God’s people, we are striving to follow God wherever he might take us in this new world. Our new logo is a reflection of that desire to follow God!

Congratulations and Thanks to Northminster Preschool for re-painting the preschool! This is truly a blessing for both the preschool and the church. It provides a more beautiful campus and play area for the children and teachers of the preschool. It also improves the appearance of our church and, well, even the value of our property! So, again–THANK YOU!

Pastor Markus Watson

This week is an incredibly special week for people who are followers of Jesus! This is the week that we remember Jesus’ suffering and crucifixion, and celebrate Jesus’ victorious resurrection! And as I mentioned in my meditation on Sunday, you can’t get from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday without going through Good Friday.

As followers of Jesus, I believe we’re called to journey with Jesus from Palm Sunday through the pain and suffering of Maundy Thursday and Good Friday to the joyous celebration of Easter Sunday. To help us take that journey, we’re offering special services on Thursday and Friday this week, both at 7:00 p.m.

On Maundy Thursday–the night of the Last Supper–we will be having a special service in which we will have stations set up throughout the sanctuary for meditation. And on Good Friday, we will remember the final hours of Jesus life with a “Tenebrae” service–a service “Into Darkness,” gradually bringing the sanctuary into darkness, symbolically journeying with Jesus into the darkness of his death.

So here are the days and times to remember:

Maundy Thursday, March 20, 7:00 p.m.
Good Friday, March 21, 7:00 p.m.

Finally on Easter Sunday, we’ll have worship services at our normal times:

Contemporary Service, 9:00 a.m.
Traditional “Heritage” Service, 10:45 a.m.

See you there!

Markus

For those of you who would like to go the extra distance in demonstrating Christ’s love for those less fortunate than you, here is yet another opportunity! Good Samaritan Episcopal Church in the UTC area is needing to keep Interfaith Shelter guests at their church for an extra week that they didn’t plan for. They are in great need of volunteers to prepare dinners, spend the night, and possibly do other tasks too. The week they need the help for is March 29 through April 6. If you can possibly help, please, please contact Jim and Jill Lawrence, coordinators at Good Samaritan. The email is jlaw1998@earthlink.net.

Between services last Sunday, the families and friends of Northminster got together in celebration of our Grand Re-opening of our Nursery Shower Party! It proved to be a great opportunity to enjoy fellowship, cake and punch as we received new toys, bedding and baby items that were gifted to our nursery in honor of all of the youngest congregants at Northminster.

Our new nursery is being set up just outside of our Sanctuary, so new mothers and dads can be most comfortable in knowing that their babies are safe and well cared for during service. Thank you all for helping us celebrate with your loving contributions.

Just a reminder that this Sunday, March 9th, we will be having one combined church service at 9:30 a.m., where we will be joined by the preschool families in honor of the beautiful new lawn that has been installed in our preschool playground area.

Our 9:30 service will be followed by a brief dedication of our new playground turf and a delicious pancake brunch! Please join us for this special occasion.

… and remember to turn your clocks ahead one hour this coming Saturday night or you may arrive at church a bit late…

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.