2011 what an amazing year for North Ridge Church

It was about 16 months ago when we started North Ridge Church, since we began we have seen God do things that we had only dreamed would happen. Our church began with just a few friends who had a unified vision to see people come to faith in Jesus Christ and live out the mission of God through their lives. This vision has now become a reality. We have seen in those months over 75 people come to faith in Christ and 48 people baptized. The spiritual growth that we have seen in the lives of our people has been amazing. Our attendance that began with our launch team of just a few friends has now grown into a body of believers that is over 300 people involved in our church and an average of over 200 people gathering weekly to worship.

The part that is even more amazing is how God has allowed us to go out and serve our community. We have sent out over 100 people every Second Sunday morning during 2011 through our Take It To The Street Sundays (www.takeittothestreets.tv) and have impacted the lives of thousands. There has been over 200 different people in 2011 go out from our church and serve through Take It To The Streets. We have see homeless people get off the streets, teenage girls in a children's home find hope in Jesus, women who are recently out of prison give their lives to follow Jesus, and we fed thousands of people in need. Another amazing project that we had the privilege of leading in our area was called LOVE GAVE FOOD (www.lovegave.com). This was an amazing experience where we engaged almost 200 volunteers from our church to raise over $30,000 to provide almost 70,000 meals this Christmas! For a church that has just started a little over a year ago we have been able to do things that I only dreamed were possible. Something that we have learned from the life of Jesus and from experience is when you send people out their hearts are set of fire for the Kingdom of God!

We believe that we are only at the beginning of what God wants to do through the people of North Ridge Church. We believe that there are thousands that will come to know God through this body of believers and we believe that God has thousands in need all over this city who we are called to go and serve. 2012 is going to be amazing, so join the movement of life change! www.northridgejackson.com

Serve With Us!

Hey folks,

We have an exciting month coming up in April! We will be having a Grand Opening Worship Gathering this Sunday April 3rd and then on the April 10th we will be doing Take It To The Streets again - (read more) www.takeittothestreets.tv - Last month was our firstTake It To The Streets Sunday and it was off the charts amazing! We fed over 125 people, 250 people were ministered to, 80 people heard about the hope that is found in Christ, tons of new relationships began, and many others things done in the name JESUS!

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO WANT TO MISS OUT IN APRIL - The reason for this email is to let you know about the projects, so you can sign-up, and it is important the we have an idea of about how many people are going to serve and what mission work they want to do, so we can plan:

Project List for April 10th:

1. Homeless Ministry - A team of about 20 people will go to Poindexter Park in Jackson and Grill out food, Hang out with folks and build relaitonships.

2. Methodist Children's Home - (2 Teams at Children's Home)

(A.) Team One - a team of about 15 people will work with about 30 girls that live there. We will feed them breakfast, hang out with girls and share a message and worship with them.

(B.) Team Two - Another Team will repair and clean up at the Children's Home Property - There is a ton of work to get this 165 acre property in good shape!

3. Crossroads Ministry - (Transition Home for Women out of Prison) - 2 Teams at Crossroads

(A.) Team One - Repair and Paint around Home the women live in.

(B.) Team Two - We need a group of about 3-5 women to lead a Bible Study each time we do Take It To The Streets. - This would be an awesome ministry for 3-5 of our women to own and lead!

4. Ridge Kids - Our Children will remain on site at the School and will be preparing Thank You Candy Bags for the Staff at Rosa Scott School - ( 10-12 leaders need to stay at School and Disciple North Ridge Kids)

5. General Sign-Up - We would like to have a team who we could send to a couple of houses and clean and do yard work. The people we would serve for this Project would be those who are elderly, single mothers, just had a baby, just had surgery and needs help cleaning in the house and/or in the yard. (Please Let us know if you know anyone that we can serve in this way)

THAT GIVES US 7 Teams and Over 100 people involved in serving! It is going to take all of us getting on board to TAKE THE LOVE OF JESUS OUTSIDE OF OUR WALLS!

Please let us know where you and your family would like to serve (Please Invite Friends to Go Serve with us that day) - Forward this email to them!

Email me back or Chad Hoeppel - chad@northridgejackson.com

SO PUMPED ABOUT THE MONTH OF APRIL! Let's Go North Ridge!!! I Love This Church:)

April 3rd - Grand Opening

April 10th - Take It To The Streets

April 17th - Palm Sunday

April 24th - Easter

In Christ,

Eric

Rethink Success for the Church

If you are a church planter or any type of pastoral leader, then you understand the tension and pressure that is felt to GROW the church numerically. It is a crazy pressure that is felt not from one person or from anyone specifically, but just a pressure that is present. It creates a stress that tells you that if you do not have this thing growing FAST, then you are not very good at what you do. This pressure will try to define you and steal your joy. Hear me out that I am not saying we should be satisfied if your church is not growing. I am a 100% believer that we need to be doing everything we can to have numerical growth, but have we created an UNHEALTHY system of defining success in the American Church?

I am probably one of the most driven people on the planet, so sometimes I wrestle with this a lot and sometimes I even wonder is this whole numerical growth thing about GOD or is really about ME? I know we would all say it is about God, but is it really? I believe that we need to rethink success for the church moving forward. I think that we need to change the pressure that is felt to go from growing "converts" to a pressure to actually building people into authentic disciples of Jesus Christ. If we choose to move away from the pressure of how many "butts can I get in the seats" to actually creating a culture where disicpleship can happen, then I think we will see a shift! The problem in America is that we always think whoever has the BIGGEST is doing it right and they are obviously doing something right, but the most important question is are we creating discipling cultures.

You might read this and say this guy is just someone who does not like large churches and the exact opposite is true, I have served in four Mega Churches and one of them was one of the fastest growing in America and I loved it. I just think that the pressure has been placed in the wrong area and it needs to go from just Growing numerically to really creating a culture that puts people into environments that is going to stretch them. If you read the gospels that is what Jesus did!

Remember: Consumers do not give their lives away for the sake of God's Kindgom, but disciples do! If we are going to see revival in America it is not going to be through consumers, but rather disciples. Jesus got this! He invested His life in a few because He understood to create a movement it was about investing and relationships. (that is discipleship)

I will write more later about creating that culture and what is looks like for our church. www.northridgejackson.com

Eric Smith

Creating a Discipling Culture

Today churches are bigger than they have ever been. We have more bells and whistles than we have ever had in the church. We could compete with Hollywood on the production quality of the church service that go on each Sunday around the US. But we are still failing!!! So the question that each of us have to ask ourselves is why are the younger generations not going to church? And why are we not making more disciples?

I am convinced it is because we are not creating a discipling culture in the church. Jesus spent the majority of his short 3.5 years of ministry pouring his life into a few men who would change history. Jesus understood what it took to create a movement of a discipling culture. How are you spending your time? I know the way I have been spending my time and it is not developing a discipling culture, I have to change the way I am using my time and begin to imitate Jesus.

Jesus was not a SOFTY

I have a really great conversation with a friend the other night who has been in minsitry working with athletes for many years. He expressed to me a concern in our churches that things come across very feminine in our worship and our expression of Jesus. He told me that he took his college football team to church the last two weeks to two differnt churches and was concerned that the majority would not want to go back because they were turned off by the softy Jesus that was presented. I am not saying that we should not have intimate or meditative worship because I love to worship God passionately, but we need to be careful because Jesus was not a SOFTY!!! Jesus was a man's man! Sometimes I think our preunderstanding and presuppostions that are created by maybe a picture we have seen of Jesus in a diaper or whatever distort our view of Jesus. We sometimes create worship services that are all sweet and soft and that's great, but that is not the full picture of Jesus or the Church!

If Jesus were a softy He would not have ran the money changers out of the temple with a whip and turned over their tables in John 2, Mark 11, and Matthew 21. If Jesus were a softy he would not have called the Pharisees out on thier wicked ways in Matthew 23. A softy would not call them out! If Jesus were a softy, then how could he endure 40 days in the desert fasting and endure the temptations of Satan! If Jesus were a softy, then why would he have endured the beating that took our transgressions upon him. If Jesus was soft why would He go to the cross and die, so that we could have life? If Jesus was soft, then He would have stopped all of the beating and crucifixion (He could He was GOD in the Flesh), but He was tough, strong, loving, compassionate, good, and forgiving. Jesus was the ultimate warrior and we need to celebrate that and remeber who Jesus was becasue to often I think we have this image of a soft, gentle, timid, sweet little Jesus, but He was so much more than that, He was a warrior! By the way His disciples also gave thier lives for the sake of others. They were warriors of the gospel and they learned from Jesus, so we can learn from Jesus and the disciples. If we want to be real men we need to have the strength and courage of Jesus along with the compassion and sacrificial love for other people!

Kids stay in school

I was reading my friend Scott Wilson's blog this morning while I am working on reading 7 books for a class next month. Why am I doing this? Scott was talking about growing in his faith and leadership and I was reminded this is why I am doing this. I am doing this so that I can hopefully grow in my faith and leadership. Sometimes I wonder is school really worth it? But I know that God is preparing me for something. I am not sure exaclty what yet, but I am trying to be faithful even though I am tired of doing my this work on my days off from work. My point is that it is hard to stay focused and driven, but I have to remember that it is not all about me! THAT IS HARD!!! Pray that i get all this done.