MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM ALL OF US AT NP!

O God our Father, you have brought us again to the glad season.....when we celebrate the birth of your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Grant that his Spirit may be born anew in our hearts this day.....and that we may joyfully welcome him to reign over us. Open our ears that we may hear again the angelic chorus of old. Open our lips that we, too, may sing with uplifted hearts.

Glory to God in the highest,.....and on earth, peace, goodwill toward all; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The United Methodist Book of Worship, no. 276.

Coffee Connection @ Blackwater Cafe November 3

The Church has a MISSION and it's spelled out through Jesus' teachings in the New Testament. That MISSION is often misunderstood in the American Church today. This will be the focus of our 1st COFFEE CONNECTION on Monday evening, November 3rd, 2008 at 7:00pm at the Blackwater Cafe in Bristol, New Hampshire.

You might call it the Election-Eve Connection around the Coffee Pot ... but there will be NO POLITICS ALLOWED in this setting! Instead, Mike Tremblay will lead off with a simple explanation from the Scripture of the MISSION and show an intriguing video that is sure to stir some Non-Political Discussion centered on being missional.

The COFFEE CONNECTION is a joint venture of NORTHPoint Network, Sunday Night Connection and Blackwater Cafe and will be an ongoing monthly session focusing in on missional issues.
For more info, contact Mike or Chuck. You can also call the NP Network hotline at 603.786.9334 and leave your number - we'll call back asap! Blessings and love in Jesus!

NEW COFFEE HOUSE

Healing Place Ministries has joined hands with NorthPOINT Network! The Healing Place will be operating under the name BLACKWATER CAFE on Main St in downtown Bristol, New Hampshire. The Cafe will provide a place for people to connect, enjoy coffee, read Christ-centered books and pamphlets as well as gather for Bible studies, prayer, worship and special video series.

Directing this venture will be Chuck Wild from Alexandria. Chuck and Mike have been friends for nearly 10 years. Chuck has taught at Sunday Night Connection and Mike has dreamedabout SNC's involvement with a coffee house ministry. NorthPOINT is excited to be involved! Watch this blog and visit SNC's sight for more updates under a link "blackwater". In the very near future, Blackwater will have it's own site.

Visit Chuck at the Cafe just across the street from TD Banknorth and next to Whole Foods.

NEW CHURCH START

A new church start in the Ashland-Bristol area has asked NorthPOINT's Mike Tremblay to lead the worship gatherings. Mike met with a number of the folk from this fellowship about a week ago and sensed a clear their desire for a holistic, missional, Christ-led ekklesia (Greek word translated church) to be planted. On Sunday, July 27th, Mike and Kathy gathered with this new church family at an Ashland home. The service was held on their deck under a beautiful setting with awenings to shade the sun.

Mike led in worship songs even having Kathy come by his side to teach the song, "You Never Let Go" written by Matt Redman. Mike spoke on "What Now...?" from Ephesians 4:1-7, stating the body of Christ was called (v1) to hold firm with the BONDS OF ... (1) LOVE (v2) (2) UNITY (v3-6) and (3) GRACE (v7).

Pray for this new body as they seek to be a missional, Christ-centered and focused movement in Central New Hampshire. More info about this group will becoming once their new website is up(we'll let you know the address asap!).

IT'S NEW! "Coffee Connection"

CoffeeConnection is a new way to explore together Jesus' Mission and how we too can connect. The Great Commission and The Great Command (Matthew 22:37-39; 28:19-20) as well as Jesus last words to us in Acts 1:8 (ESV) "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." stir within us the need to be missional.

CoffeeConnection can aid us in being the church as God designed ... moving us into sometimes messy ministry. Check out this site for the upstart of this new gathering and watch God move!

Welcome to Being the Church

by Mike Tremblay

Check out this quote:

What is Missional - A Short Answer

"Jesus told us to go into all the world and be his ambassadors, but many churches today have inadvertently changed the "go and be" command to a "come and see" appeal. We have grown attached to buildings, programs, staff and a wide variety of goods and services designed to attract and entertain people.

"Missional is a helpful term used to describe what happens when you and I replace the "come to us" invitations with a "go to them" life. A life where "the way of Jesus" informs and radically transforms our existence to one wholly focused on sacrificially living for him and others and where we adopt a missionary stance in relation to our culture. It speaks of the very nature of the Jesus follower." ---Rick Meigs

And this one:

Description of a Missional Church

- A missional church is a collection of missional believers acting in concert together in fulfillment of the missio dei.1
- A missional church is one where people are exploring and rediscovering what it means to be Jesus' sent people as their identity and vocation.
- A missional church is individuals willing and ready to be Christ's people in their own situation and place.
- A missional church knows that they must be a cross-cultural missionary (contextual) people and adopt a missionary stance in relation to their community.
- A missional church will be engaged with the culture (in the world) without being absorbed by the culture (not of the world). They will become intentionally indigenous.
- A missional church understands that God is already present in the culture where it finds itself. Therefore, a missional church doesn't view its purpose as bringing God into the culture or taking individuals out of the culture to a sacred space.
- A missional church is about more than just being contextual, it is also about the nature of the church and how it relates to God.
- A missional church is about being -- being conformed to the image of God.
- A missional church will seek to plant all types of missional communities.
- A missional church is evangelistic and faithfully proclaims the gospel through word and deed. Words alone are not sufficient; how the gospel is embodied in our community and service is as important as what we say.
- A missional church understands the power of the gospel and does not lose confidence in it.
- A missional church will align all their activities around the missio dei -- the mission of God.
- A missional church seeks to put the good of their neighbor over their own.
- A missional church will give integrity, morality, good character and conduct, compassion, love and a resurrection life filled with hope preeminence to give credence to their reasoned verbal witness.
- A missional church practices hospitality by welcoming the stranger into the midst of the community.
- A missional church will see themselves as a community or family on a mission together. There are no "Lone Ranger" Christians in a missional church.
- A missional church will see themselves as representatives of Jesus and will do nothing to dishonor his name.
- A missional church will be totally reliant on God in all it does. It will move beyond superficial faith to a life of supernatural living.
- A missional church will be desperately dependent on prayer.
- A missional church gathered will be for the purpose of worship, encouragement, supplemental teaching, training, and to seek God's presence and to be realigned with God's missionary purpose.
- A missional church is orthodox in its view of the gospel and scripture, but culturally relevant in its methods and practice so that it can engage the worldview of the hearers.
- A missional church will feed deeply on the scriptures throughout the week.
- A missional church will be a community where all members are involved in learning "the way of Jesus." Spiritual development is an expectation.
- A missional church will help people discover and develop their spiritual gifts and will rely on gifted people for ministry instead of talented people.
- A missional church is a healing community where people carry each other's burdens and help restore
gently.
- A missional church will requires that its leaders be missiologists. 1. From Brother Maynard

What a Missional Church is Not

- A missional church is not a dispenser of religious goods and services or a place where people come for their weekly spiritual fix.
- A missional church is not a place where mature Christians come to be fed and have their needs met.
- A missional church is not a place where "professionals" are hired to do all the work of the church.
- A missional church is not a place where the "professionals" teach the children and youth about God to the exclusion of parental responsibility.
- A missional church is not a church with a "good missions program." The people are the missions program and includes going to "Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
- A missional church is not about a new strategy for evangelism.
- A missional church is not missional just because it is contemporary, young, hip, postmodern-sensitive, seeker-sensitive or even traditional.
- A missional church is not about big programs and organizations to accomplish God's missionary purpose. This does not imply no program or organization, but that they will not drive mission. They will be used in support of people on mission.
- A missional church is not involved in political party activism, either on the right or left. As Brian McLaren wrote, we need "purple peoplehood" — people who don't want to be defined as red or blue, but have elements of both.

Etymology of Missional

Definition: "Relating to or connected with a religious mission; missionary."

Part of Speech: Adjective. An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words. An adjective usually precedes the noun or the pronoun which it modifies.

Etymology: From the word missionalism which is a noun meaning, "missionary work or activity."

First Usage: 1907 in W. G. HOLMES' Age Justinian & Theodora II. Page 687. Quote: "Several prelates, whose missional activities brought over whole districts and even nationalities to their creed" (emphasis added). (Reference: Oxford English Dictionary)

Modern Usage: The first missiologist using the term "missional" in its modern understanding was Francis DuBose in his book, "God Who Sends" (Broadman Press, 1983). By the 1990's the term began to appear more and more in such books as "Missional Church: A Vision for the Sending of the Church in North America" (Edited by Darrell L. Guder) and the works of Lesslie Newbigin.

Found and quoted from the Friend of MISSIONAL web site found here: http://www.friendofmissional.org/

What you have just read is what NORTHpoint Network is all about! BEING THE CHURCH as God designed it to be.