flourish

 

At New Life, we have witnessed mighty moves of God down throughout the generations. He has been faithful to see His people flourish in each age and we believe He’s not done yet! Even more amazing, he wants to partner with us to cultivate the seeds of his kingdom, here on the Central Coast, and beyond. What a humbling and awe-inspiring truth! Through baptisms (over 150 in the last year), increased numbers of new visitors, a youth ministry bursting at the seams (200-300 coming on Wednesdays), or exponential growth in the numbers of families we serve at the Pantry, we can see that God is continuing to use New Life in His kingdom work.

While we celebrate how God is producing amazing fruit, we recognize that all this growth comes with some wonderful challenges. Many of our ministries have reached or are approaching capacity and we are committed to being a good steward of the campus and the people God has entrusted to us. In addition, we are confident that God won’t stop at this generation; therefore, we want to make sure we are setting up the NEXT generation of New Life to flourish as well!

Our board and ministry leaders have identified three solutions to see New Life continue to thrive for the sake of our community and for God’s glory. We anticipate the building/construction of this project to span 3 years, while the giving portion to be a bit shorter, ending in December 2026. We are prayerfully anticipating beginning phase one of construction in Fall 2024; however, we know much is contingent on permitting and other factors, so we hold our expectations loosely.

Ministry Expansion

We are excited to see how God might broaden our reach as we rethink, re-imagine, and remodel our spaces.

This building is by far the most used space on our campus! How might God expand the ministry done within it’s walls when we invest some resources and love into it? Here are some areas we are praying into and planning to re-imagine this space:
    • Students: We’d like to give them access to our larger campus including the Life Center and more options for small groups, safer parking/drop off locations, and more space in general.
    • Entrances: We’d like to remodel the building to have better access from multiple points on our campus as well as more inviting and intuitive entrances.
    • Sound & Tech Updates: The Life Center needs some sound treatments and audio/visual upgrades in order to meet the growing needs of meetings, studies and worship...especially when our YTH starts using the space.

 

If you can think back to your first experience on the New Life campus, you might recall that the layout of campus and parking can be a bit confusing.  We live in the 9th most post-christian area of the country. There are enough barriers keeping people from getting to church...parking and campus layout shouldn’t be one of them! We would like to improve our hospitality in these areas:
    • Patio expansion: We envision a larger space to gather, connect, and form meaningful relationships by terracing       the grassy hill and providing more usable space.
    • New Welcome Center: We want to re-imagine our current office space to be used on Sundays as an easy-to-see starting point for people, a centralized location to check in children, and a generally more inviting and intuitive experience for all. This space could also be used during the week for small-medium sized groups and classes.
The former parsonage, is an under-utilized asset on our campus. We have many hopes and dreams for this space, yet, it’s not very usable at the moment due to the many repairs and updates necessary to make it safe and compliant for people to gather.

Maintenance

We are entering into the 38th year of amazing and fruitful ministry on this current New Life campus! While we celebrate this milestone, we also know that 38 years comes with a lot of wear and tear and needs for updates. We want to be good stewards of the amazing resources God has blessed us with. In addition, we don’t want to handcuff the next generation of New Life with expensive and cumbersome repairs. For that reason we want to be diligent to take care of our campus maintenance now!

    • 12 year plan: We hired a third-party company to asses our buildings and have developed a detailed plan to help New Life enter into the next 40 years of ministry with SAFETY and functionality. Projects like: new roofs, fresh paint, flooring, safety fencing and railing, HVAC updates, etc.
    • Alignment: Incorporating these projects with the areas of ministry expansion detailed in the previous section.

Missions

We have vision to see God using New Life to be a blessing to the nations in ways we haven’t seen before. We are committing to dedicate 10% of funds raised through this Flourish Initiative to establish new missions partnerships. We are praying God will reveal to us the right place and ministry where our significant resources of finances and people can be a life-changing blessing to a community. Our prayer is that this partnership would be realistic for New Lifers to visit in person, so we are considering flight-times, financial commitment, and safety of location. We want to see New Life families and individuals experience the joy of breaking down barriers of nationality and language to experience the richness of God’s global Kingdom together.

During this season of we are consecrating ourselves by praying and fasting with expectation and asking God for guidance and direction. Ask that He would reveal to you how He would like to challenge you to be a part of this initiative. Pray that He would multiply our effort and our dollars to make the greatest impact for the Kingdom on the Central Coast.

There is wisdom in being knowledgeable in where our finances are being spent. This is an important part of being a good steward. We encourage you to put some time and thought into your finances, to see areas you could prune back or simplify (how many streaming services does one family need?) and then investing those resources in areas that can lead to eternal flourishing.

Once you’ve spent time in prayer and pruning, it’s time to make a commitment for how you will participate in cultivating the seeds of the Kingdom. Keep in mind that God calls us to generosity FOR OUR GOOD. Whether we give a one-time lump sum or an on-going pledge over the next couple years, we want to see God honored in our generosity and allow this to shape us further into His image.

Official Pledge Sunday: May 19

We want you to be ROOTED here in this church family! We want you to see yourself as a contributor, cultivating alongside God as He reveals the harvest. This looks like extending an invitation to others to join in and engage with Jesus. This looks like serving on a crew, using your time and gifts to see others flourish. Finally, this looks like abiding in prayer, anticipating the fruit that God will produce...in you, and in our community!