New City Church Proposal

NEW CITY CHURCH And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

REVELATION 21:5

Planting Pastor: Dustin Neeley dustinneeley@icloud.com www.newcitychurchnashville.org Twitter: @dustinneeley

(502) 541-4445 Instagram: dustinneeley

OUR CONTEXT WHY NASHVILLE? • It is the second largest metro area in Tennessee with a population of 1,670,200 souls and the 5th largest

• It is an “upstream,” culture-creating, and widely influential hub of the rapidly urbanizing South.

city in the Southeastern united States.

• Droves of newcomers move into Nashville each year.

• It is #10 on Forbes’ Lists for Best Places for Business

New people are often reached by new churches.

and Careers.

• Though we envision New City Church envision growing • It is widely known as a center for music industry and hailed around the world as “Music City.”

into a multi-congregational movement, every invasion must establish a firm beachhead. Our mission will begin in the Nashville suburb of Franklin.

WHY FRANKLIN? • The population has doubled in the past 10 years and is expected to double again in the next 10 years.

• Franklin is also a favorite place to live for young families because of its high-quality schools. Franklin students routinely achieve some of the top test scores

• Franklin is home to major corporate headquarters,

in the state.

historical attractions, an abundance of shopping and plenty of parks. The Downtown Franklin Historic District was named one of the Top 10 Great

• We believe the people of Franklin will be receptive to the Gospel and an area ripe for harvest.

Neighborhoods by the American Preservation Association’s Great Places in America program. It also made the Top 10 Downtowns list in 2011.

• Our sending church already has a number of families in this area to help the new work get established.

OUR PLANTERS Dustin Neeley has been in full-time vocational ministry for

and equipped and launched 11 church planters in cities like

almost twenty years and has been involved in nearly every

New Orleans, Cleveland and Salt Lake City, commissioned

ministry capacity imaginable. His writing has been featured

6 missionaries and sent out more than twenty five senior

on well-known websites such as The Gospel Coalition, The

pastors and staff persons. In early 2015, the wonderful

Resurgence, Boundless Magazine and Churchleaders.com

story God is telling through the Neeley’s turned a new page.

and his popular church planting video series garnered more

Jesus called, the Neeley’s answered and are relocating to

than 235,000 views on YouTube and is now featured on

Nashville, TN to step into this exciting new chapter of life

LifeWay’s Ministry Grid church training program. In

and ministry to begin New City Church. Currently, Dustin

2005, God called Dustin to be the lead and founding

is raising prayer and financial support for this new work.

pastor of Crossing Church in Louisville, Kentucky. In that

God willing, early 2016 will bring initial vision and core

decade of faithful service, the church grew to be in the top

group meetings and September 2016 will bring the launch

11% sized churches in the Southern Baptist Convention

of New City Church.

OUR VISION AND VALUES OUR VISION:

To partner with Jesus as He renews our city through the power of His transforming Gospel.

OUR VALUES:

Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.

Psalm 127:1 ESV

GOSPEL

We believe the person and work of Jesus Christ are the “Big Story” of the Bible and should be the “Big Story” of our lives.

COMMUNITY

We believe life change occurs best within the context of relationships. We will pursue these relationships through large and small groups.

MISSION

We believe the Gospel is too good to keep to ourselves. We will seek to share this message with as many individuals as we can in both word and deed.

MULTIPLICATION

We believe healthy things grow and reproduce themselves. We will seek to multiply disciples, groups and congregations.

STRATEGY, STRUCTURE AND TIMELINE 5

Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce. 6 Take wives and have sons and

daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. 7 But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.

Jeremiah 29:5-7 ESV

OUR STRATEGY

OUR STRUCTURE

OUR TIMELINE

GATHERING A vibrant Sunday

Having successfully planted a

Morning gathering with strong,

church before, we know the

ourselves in the community—to

Biblical preaching, passionate

timeline is ultimately in God’s

become good neighbors, good

worship and “Dad, take me back

hands. That said, our plan is

students, involved parents, and

next week!” children’s and student

to relocate our family to the

active in community events. In

ministries.

Nashville area in early 2015 and

In planting New City Church, our first priority will be to immerse

doing so, we build trust and seek the good of our city.

GROUPS Smaller groups of men vand women that meet during the

We will be a highly relational church. As relationships develop, we will begin neighborhoodbased Missional Communities that will grow and multiply and prepare us to “go public” with a Sunday gathering once we reach approximately 40 people.

week to study and apply the Bible and encourage one another in the Christian faith .

GOING

begin immersing ourselves in the community immediately.

As things progress, we expect to start vision gatherings and Bible studies in early 2016 and our

Individual men, women,

boys and girls who see themselves as missionaries and servants in their spheres of influence.

Sunday morning gathering in September 2016.

OUR PARTNERSHIPS Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.

Ecclesiastes 4:9

A global network of church planting churches led by Matt Chandler.

Our sending church in Nashville led

by Ray Ortlund.

The church Dustin planted and pastored for 10 years in Louisville, KY.

Partner church led by James Welch in New Orleans, LA.

Partner church led by Kevin Vance in Evansville, IN. We are actively pursuing partnerships with other churches and individuals as well.

PARTNER WITH US I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. Philippians 1:3-5

HOW YOU CAN HELP Pray

• We would be a church marked by a deep love for Jesus.

• Many souls will be saved and lives transformed through this new Gospel work.

• We would have wisdom and discernment for ministry in the city.

• We would find favor in the eyes of the city and its influencers.

• God would provide all of our financial needs.

• God would bring the right people at the right time to help us launch New City.

• That New City would be the first of many Gospelcentered Jesus-loving churches planted in this movement.

Give

New City Church will not become a reality without the financial gifts of God’s people.

• Or goal is for New City Church to be self-supporting by the end of year three. However, like nearly all church plants, our initial funding will come from outside sources.

• Our first year financial goal is $125,000 and our total goal for the first three years is $625,000. These funds will help to cover the costs of the salaries of our staff, administration, supplies, and facility rental.

• To meet our three-year goal, New City Church is

looking for churches and individuals to join us as financial partners.This may include regular monthly giving, yearly giving or one- time gifts over the course of our first three years. Every dollar makes a difference.

Capital “One Time” Expenses • Website, print, branding, other “get the word out” expenses. $2500 • Targeted outreach projects and events $5000 • Children’s ministry equipment and curriculum $7500 • Portable church materials (cases, trailer etc.) $15,000 • Sound/projection/media equipment $20,000

Go

• Ask any church planter and he will tell you that his most important resource is people. Perhaps you know someone in the Nashville area would be interested in helping us launch New City Church. If so, we would love to reach out to them. Perhaps you think God may even be calling you to come to Nashville to help us.

We’d love to hear your story.

• Is your church looking for a summer missions project?

If so, we would love to connect. Please reach out to us and let’s begin a conversation about how we might partner in the Gospel together.

WHY PLANT A NEW CHURCH IN THE CITY? Adapted from “Why Plant Churches” by Tim Keller

Often times, the normal response to discussions about church planting is something like this: • We already have plenty of churches and lots of room for all the other people. Let’s get them filled before we build other churches •

A new church will just take people away from existing churches

•

Help should be given to the struggling churches first.We need better churches, not more churches.

• Although these statements appear to be ‘common sense’ to many people, they rest on several assumptions.The error of this thinking will become clear if we ask,“Why is church planing crucially important?”

Church Planting is a Biblical Mandate

Jesus’ essential call was to plant churches.Virtually all the great evangelistic challenges of the NewTestament are basically calls to plant churches, not simply to share the faith.The ‘Great Commission’ (Matt.28: 18-20) is not just a call to ‘make disciples’ but to ‘baptize’. In Acts and elsewhere, it is clear that baptism means incorporation into a worshipping community with accountability and boundaries (cf. Acts 2:41-47).The only way to be truly sure you are increasing the number of Christians in a town is to increase the number of churches.

Paul’s whole strategy was to plant urban churches.The greatest missionary in history, St.Paul, had a rather simple, two-fold strategy. First, he went into the largest city of the region (cf.

Acts 16:9,12), and second, he planted churches in each city (cf.

Titus 1:5).Once Paul had done that, he could say that he had ‘fully preached’ the gospel in a region and that he had ‘no more work’ to do there (cf. Romans 15:19,23).This means Paul had two controlling assumptions: a) that the way to most permanently influence a country was through its chief cities, and b) the way to most permanently influence a city was to plant churches in it.

Once he had accomplished this in a city, he moved on. He knew that the rest that needed to happen would follow.

Planting New Churches is Healthy for the Entire Body of Christ

It is a great mistake to think that we have to choose between church planting and church renewal. Strange as it may seem, the planting of new churches in a city is one of the very best ways to revitalize many older churches in the vicinity and renew the whole Body of Christ.

Often times, in efforts to reach out to unchurched people, a new church will take risks and bring new ideas into the whole Body.

It is the new churches that will have freedom to be innovative and they become the ‘Research and Development’ department for the whole Body in the city. Often the older congregations were too timid to try a particular approach or were absolutely sure it would ‘not work here’. But when the new church in town succeeds wildly with some new method, the other churches eventually take notice and get the courage to try it themselves.

Likewise, in older congregations, leaders can emphasize tradition, tenure, routine, and kinship ties. New congregations, on the other hand, attract a higher percentage of venturesome people who value creativity, risk, innovation and future orientation. Often older churches ‘box out’ many people with strong leadership skills who cannot work in more traditional settings. New churches thus attract and harness many people in the city whose gifts would otherwise not be utilized in the work of the Body.These new leaders benefit the whole city- Body eventually.

A Kingdom Mentality

New church planting is the only way that we can be sure we are going to increase the number of believers in a city and one of the best ways to renew the whole Body of Christ.The evidence for this statement is strong--Biblically, sociologically, and historically. In the end, a focus on the Kingdom of God rather than our own personal kingdoms will keep us fixated upon Jesus’ call to go and make disciples of all nations.

NEW CITY CHURCH newcitychurchnashville.org