MCN Blog

The Network exists to connect Biblically grounded, Christ-centered churches with one another for the purposes of relationship building, mutual encouragement, complementary collaboration, and effective witness to the community – and all that entails for the Kingdom. Your support allows us a tremendous diversity of impacts in our community that help bridge the gap between the Church and those who need to hear the life-changing gospel of Christ. Some of what you support is Annual Projects like: Kingdom Class Awards Banquet, Mayor’s Prayer Breakfast, Church in the Park, HOPE Fest Family Outreach, XFest Skate Park Outreach and the Pastor’s Prayer Summit as well as Ongoing Regular Projects like: Igniter Youth Ministries (Building 125 Work Day, Summer of Service, RockeTown Youth Center), Pastor’s Prayer Gatherings, a community wide First Responders Prayer Shield and a fully functional board of community leaders with vision and passion for Christ in our region. Its very exciting. Thank you! "HopeFest opened the door for our children's director to share the gospel with children and their families. Some of those children attended our BLAST after-school program in the fall and received Christ as Savior. This is a great investment for the Kingdom." Doug Ingmire, Pastor, Newton Christian Church

July 4: Community Worship in the Park & Picnic Dinner during the Chisholm Trail Festival, and August 14: XFest 2010 in the morning and HOPEFest 2010 in the afternoon! XFest is designed to reach the kids that hang out at the Newton Skate Park with a skate clinic and contest - while HOPE Fest is designed to reach out to families struggling to make ends meet and provide a hand up – both in a Christ filled context. We’re bringing in an evangelistic skate and BMX bike team that will perform and share the gospel at both events in different ways for different audiences. They will come in the day before and hold a free skate clinic for the kids! This will help build a bond of trust, even friendship and respect between them and the kids - earning the right to share, so to speak. Same with HOPEFest – offering a tangible hand-up to struggling moms - to earn the right to share the HOPE we have in Jesus Christ! We’re having our second board meeting with the new board next week! and working to strengthen both the pastoral leadership we have enjoyed for five years and the new community leadership we are enjoying today. Summer is a tough time financially for us – as our income goes way down when Karla’s subbing ends. Thank you so much for your faithful giving to the cause! It really does help so much in such a BIG way!!

A New Thing:

 

After 5 wonderful, challenging, breakthrough years expressing this vision and this passion for "Kingdom Class" Communities, MCN is taking a new, huge step toward living it out in greater ways... Our board, of five pastors and me, called the Round Table, has this month begun a radical transformation. The pastors have decided that they will decrease on the board so that a new work can increase: adding strong community leaders to the board, who are already living out their lives at work and in the community with Kingdom Class passion. With the goal of four new board members from the community, three have already been added and a fourth considering. Our hospital CEO, our State Representative and his wife, our Chamber of Commerce past president... and one more to be added will join two remaining pastors and me on the new board. All godly leaders in their own right, they bring a business and community understanding second to none. Two interconnected and supportive groups are being given space to emerge: the Pastors Network - to continue work in the "Being Good News, Sharing Good News" side of MCN, and the Round Table - to specifically advance the "Kingdom Class Communities" side of MCN. Two sides of one coin, as the saying goes.

Please join us in prayer! as this new process unfolds and the Lord continue to "do a new thing."

 

January 2010 Report

The year started with a clear and defining move of the Lord as almost 50 high school teens from three congregations shared one weekend retreat at Rock Springs Ranch January 16-18.

The Lord loves to bless true unity among His congregations - and as the kids and youth leaders from these three congregations came together to share one message (Do Hard Things,) seek Him and worship Him, He joined them in tangible ways, leading to a breakthrough for each person - youth or adult - present! Without any coaxing, as the group worshiped in one of the sessions, kids began to weep, and break out in repentance, recommittment and forgiveness, then the adults, then everyone. Youth spontaneously fell to their knees or prostrate before the Lord. The youth worship leader said that as the service continued way beyond the prepared songs, Jesus played his guitar through him as beautiful and powerful melodies were brought forth that he had never played before! Some of the youth wept for three hours in a cathartic expression of love and devotion to God, one young lady saying "it was the best day of her life!" An amazing move of God.

A spontaneous bible study started at the public high school during lunch after the retreat. When asked about it, one of the youth remarked, "we all just felt like part of one group now, like brothers and sisters, REALLY, and it just seemed natural."

Earlier, some on the MCN Round Table had felt that the Lord was nudging us to focus more on youth this year. This experience at Rock Springs confirmed that sense with exclamation marks!

THANK YOU FOR PRAYING & GIVING!
THIS KIND OF WORK IS A DIRECT RESULT OF YOUR FAITH AND OUR WORK TOGETHER!

 

February 2010 Report
Last month I reported on Ingniter Student Ministries' H.S. Retreat and the amazing report of unity as Jesus showed up in a powerful and tangible way. This month the second part of that strategy, a J.H. Lock-In was shared by five churches with up to twelve total sending kids. A totally different kind of event, but again, the foundation of unity in mission is being lifted as a natural and normal part of the Christian life for a new generation. What a treat for unchurched guests to participate in an environment where friends could introduce them to other friends from many different church backgrounds. Special thanks to Pastor Brian Siriwardena, Youth Pastor at Grace Community Church, and his ministry team - for spearheading these events! The vision is stronger as it is more and more lived out in the life of our churches!

Coming up: our Annual Kingdom Class Awards Banquet - honoring individuals and organizations that exemplify the call of Christ across denominational lines. Mark calendars: April 18, 5:30 p.m., Grace Community Church for an inspiring evening!

May 6th is our fourth Mayor's Prayer Breakfast for the National Day of Prayer, an event to gather community leaders from all walks of life to pray together, reignite a passion for prayer year round, and spur stronger relationships among area leaders. We started four years ago from an idea over coffee. Now an area Mayor is on the committee and five area service clubs have representatives serving. It's become a very special picture of the Body of Christ serving in all facets of our community.

Thank You! for all your love and prayers!!

Hillcrest Church Joins the monthly Support Team!

4,000+ Pounds of Foods from Canning Hunger Outreach - over a thousand more than last year!

Teaching 4 Community College Classes! Hutch College hired me to teach in its Newton satellite. My first class was Life & Thought of Jesus, then World Religions, Ethics, and Philosophy. A great fit with MCN, it also helps with finances.

Kingdom Class Awards Banquet - 6 church worship team, testimony by Steve Kelly of Newton Medical Center, State Rep. Marc Rhoades as Master of Ceremonies, honor Weekday Bible School, Tina Payne/Health Ministries, and RockeTown Youth Center. Attendance was the same as last year even with the weather rescheduling!

Mayor's Prayer Breakfast for the National Day of Prayer - Newton Chamber of Commerce staff member and Mayor of North Newton join planning team. Broad base of support from our mayors, Lions, Rotary, and Kiwanis clubs, Chamber of Commerce, and Ministerial Alliance make this all more significant as we work toward "Kingdom Class" together.

Pastor's Prayer Summit Rev. Howard Boyd, Prayer Leader - represented 10% of area congregations, and a breakthrough for unity. Each attendee expressed renewed freshness with the Lord, stronger bonds with each other and greater zeal for working together in reaching our city.

Community Worship Service in the Park a rousing success with a new congregation joining in and over 300 attending!

HOPE Fest 2009 ~ 400 adults processed through the options booths and learned about life giving community. Thirty signed up for a parenting teens class. Over 40 received ministry during free oil changes for their cars and scores (estimated at well over 100) received dental and health screenings, haircuts, even chair massages by compassionate Christians sharing the love of Christ in a compelling way. The KidZone shared the gospel with scores of hand painting presentations, and shared health tips, while kids also fought pirates, jumped on inflatables and refreshed with sno-cones. Two additional decisions for Christ during the skate presentation. It was a day of "setting seeds" of hope and "pulling weeds" of despair & building community capacity for the long term. Every person leaving the park was infused with a happy, healthy, thankful countenance.

Area-Wide Men's Retreat!

NEXTGEN PRODUCTIONS, Little Ceasar Pizza of Newton and LaRue Sound are proud to announce ABANDON in concert at Riverpoint Church, Newton on Sunday, Nov 8th. Doors will open at 5:30 and music will start at 6pm. Supporting ABANDON will be local bandsSONLIT (El Dorado) and THE LOST COLORS (Wichita.)

ABANDON hails from Texas and is tearing up the Christian Rock charts with their addicting beats and guitar riffs, high energy and great vocals. A fun, high energy pop/rock band, ABANDON will be well received by your youth group and church members.

Admission is only $7 at the door and $5 in advance. Space is limited, so you will want to order your tickets early to guarantee you can get in.

Please visit each band's pages to see how good they are. You will not want to miss this wonderful, highly affordable show.

Youth Groups - This would make a great outing for your regular Sunday evening meetings! For every 10 students purchasing a ticket, youth groups get one adult in FREE.

Genres
ABANDON - Pop/Rock, Similar in style to The Killers, Anberlin, Sanctus Real, etc.

SONLIT - Alt/Pop/Rock, similar in style to Goo Goo Dolls, David Crowder, Anberlin, Switchfoot

THE LOST COLORS - Rock, Similar in style to Fireflight, Barlow Girl, Superchick, Evanescence-

Tickets: 745-422-1259 or TICKETS@NEXTGENPRODUCTIONSKS.COM

Led by our local Mid-Cap agency.
The simulation itself will take an hour and the debriefing about 40 minutes, for a total of about 2 hours.

A Community Poverty Simulation
on
Sat, Oct 17
10 am - noon
at
Newton Recreation Center
415 N. Poplar, Newton.

Experience what life is like for low-income families seeking basic needs on a limited budget.
All are welcome - those especially encouraged to attend are faith and community leaders,
city and county employees and others who frequently deal with low-income families.

RSVPs are appreciated.
Call 316-284-0000 or email info@peaceconnections.org

Please consider inviting others to attend!

Pastor Doug Ingmire and I attended a two-day training in Kansas City focused on funding and Kingdom work hosted by the Mission America Coalition and the Christian Community foundation. A small group of leaders from across the nation were invited and I was one of them! What a privilege and honor and how reflective of the good work our little team is accomplishing. Being with Doug over that period of time and being able to learn from the best and brainstorm together how to apply the many fresh ideas was also a great blessing. Of course I will keep you abreast of things as they unfold.

Area Wide Men's Retreat 2009!

It's been said by others that the church rises or falls on the shoulders of men. Thirty-two men from six congregations gathered for a first of its kind event: a cross-denominational men's retreat designed to build up men, their families, their churches and their community. Thanks to you for helping make these kind of Body of Christ events possible. Gathering men across the congregations in such an environment can only serve to build our capacity to be alert to and ready to answer God's leading across our community. Thank you!By the way - there were also three recomittments. Nice!

From LifeChain Harvey County:

This is just to make sure you all know about the Life Chain Sunday event coming up this weekend. On Sunday, Oct. 4th, from 2-3pm there is an opportunity to make yourself known as one who supports the protection of life for unborn babies. Signs can be picked up between the Nazarene and Catholic Church (on main street).