May 2018 Be the Church. Everywhere, Every Day!
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May 2018 Middle School Retreat a Be the church. Everywhere, every day! every Everywhere, Be the church. huge success. See what else they’re up to on pg 23. TABLE OF CONTENTS Contributors: Creative Director .................Kirk Rhodes Senior Graphic Designer ...... Dede Caruso Attend the Editors ....................... Melissa Bogdany When Helping Hurts Nancy Doran Mary Trier two-day seminar. Carol Harris Writers ........................... Greg Robson Bob Castaldi Page 4 Jeremy Jobson Rebecca Lang Matt Shiles Monica Smith Pam Anderson Plan for your future Javier G. Velasquez Photographers .................... Fe Salviano at the free estate Kirk Rhodes Bradley Nolff planning seminar. Jessica Saphirstein David Saphirstein Page 6 Shaun Trout John Pierce, Jr. John Kuhn gettyimages.com Printer ....... Central Florida Publishing, Inc. Read about the impact Send newspaper correspondence to: [email protected]. Northlanders have around the globe. Our Purpose: Why we are here. Pages 9-12 From its inception in 1972, Northland has been unwavering in its purpose: To bring people to maturity in Christ. Our Vision: What we see. A vision is a clear mental picture of a preferable future. It sees the future through the eyes of faith. It shares the perspective of the biblical writer when he wrote the following words: “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, Go behind the scenes the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1, NASB). Northland’s vision is to see people coming to Christ, and to be transformed together as we link locally and globally to with worship leader, worship and serve everywhere, every day. Kailey Simpson. Our Mission: What we do. At Northland, we believe God’s call to us as a body of believers is to respond to Him for the benefit of others. There are countless ways that one can respond to God’s grace Page 14 and goodness. We have identified the following ways that we, as a church, regularly want to respond together: Worship God — John 4:21 Glorify God for who He is and what He has done. Read the Bible — Jeremiah 1:12 Study God’s message to you often. Share your story — 1 Peter 3:15 Tell others what God is doing in your life. Learn about Be in community — John 13:35 Foster environments for relationship. Northland’s best Pray — 1 Peter 3:12 Engage in conversation with God. Serve others — Matthew 25:40 kept secret. Meet the needs of the people around you. Live generously — Matthew 6:21 Give what God’s given you. Page 19 We believe that as we respond to God together we will be transformed into the image of Christ. 2 NorthlandChurch.net Care Center Ministries Expanding Its Serving Capabilities BY PASTOR JEREMY JOBSON What if people are not problems to fix but Also, we recently added Jenn Hoke, a Northland instead are image bearers with stories to congregant, registered mental health counseling intern know, human beings to love and be loved by and graduate of the Reformed Theological Seminary others? This is a fundamental question that undergirds counseling program, to our counseling team part time. all the family of ministries within the Care Center. We want to be able to help financially (through About Jennifer Hoke LifeHope benevolence), provide childcare to single parents Jennifer is passionate about coming alongside (through LifeHope Childcare), offer safe spaces for people others during difficult life struggles and offering a to find freedom from their hurts, habits, hang-ups and space to process and make sense of their life story. brokenness in their lives (through healing and recovery Her compassionate heart helps provide a safe place ministries), invite all people to experience the power of the for healing, offering hope and vision when life feels gospel regardless of physical or mental abilities (through overwhelming. Access Ministries), help people process their stories in the Jennifer’s desire for people to experience restoration hopes they will experience Christ’s transformative healing led her to pursue her calling as a professional counselor, power process (through pastoral care and counseling), and she earned her master of arts in mental health and train others who care for the body of Christ to feel counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary. She empowered to do the same (through the Shepherding currently works Project). with clients facing To that end, we are patiently, persistently and anxiety, depression, prayerfully looking for ways to unite and expand our trauma, abuse, efforts through partnerships. We currently work with PTSD, disordered undergraduate and graduate interns from multiple schools eating, grief/loss, in the area who are studying social work, mental health, spiritual apathy and marriage and family. and relationship Two exciting expansions are occurring as well. challenges. LifeHope Childcare is in the middle of a remodeling, Jennifer believes increasing the capacity for the ministry to include 3-year- that every person olds. We have also done some resurfacing in the Care is worth knowing, Center to make our physical space mirror our purpose understanding, and and tell the wonderful stories of what God is doing in our being accepted midst. Come check it out anytime! Further, we added to and loved our capacity in the Care Center with some repurposing, unconditionally. It creating new rooms used by most of our ministries for meeting with people, reaching a total of nine rooms now! (Continued on page 24.) NorthlandChurch.net 3 What Is Save the Poverty? Date! Your answer determines Local Serve your solution Day: June 9 What is poverty? Although you might not A great way to make a large think about it often, the way you answer this church feel more personal question can have a profound effect on how you interact is by taking advantage of with those around you. This is because the way we define opportunities to engage with poverty determines our solutions to alleviate it. So often our community as they present in our culture, we shrink themselves. June 9 is another poverty down to only a lack of one of those opportunities. material items – food, shelter, That Saturday morning, we will transportation and clothing. gather at the Longwood site, then launch While these are absolutely out to a dozen locations and projects. We will impact the part of the equation, they are community through serving, but the impact on ourselves just that – part of the picture. and our own community can be long-lasting. We see in the Bible Join us June 9 from 8 a.m. to noon! Sign up at that God gives us four key northlandchurch.net/localserve. relationships: relationship with God, with ourselves, with Why Serve? others and with the rest of Before His death and resurrection, Christ said, “For creation. When any of these even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to relationships are broken, serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark we aren’t living the way God 10:45, NIV). After His resurrection, He commanded His intended for us to live, and we followers to go with the authority He has and declare His can experience poverty. message by their love and actions for others. We serve The problem is poverty can manifest itself differently because Christ sent us to share the Good News and to do than we expect. For example, instead of not having a job, good deeds. The presence of the Holy Spirit in and with us it might look like being a workaholic. Or instead of having is why we go and serve our neighbors and communities. a low self-image, it might look like overconfidence that can turn into a God complex. (This means that we think the problems we see can simply be fixed by the material resources we have.) But God is calling all of us to something greater. He came to reconcile all things. Not just material poverty but all of our brokenness. The Bible tells us in Colossians 1:19-20, “For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (NIV). Join us for the next When Helping Hurts seminar, when we will explore this idea of poverty. It will affect the way you serve others and possibly each relationship in your life. The free seminar will be held Friday, May 18 from 5 to 8 p.m. (with dinner provided) and Saturday, May 19 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. (with breakfast and lunch provided). Register at calendar.northlandchurch.net. For more information, contact Jim Dees at jimdees@ vermeersoutheast.com. 4 NorthlandChurch.net/localserve How did you see God move during the March Serve Day? Coming to Our Area! “I prayed that God would connect us with other Northlanders that we could get to know better during Perspectives on the World Christian Movement Serve Day. He answered that prayer for both my 12-year- is a course that focuses on what God is doing, old daughter and me. By the end of the morning, some of and how and why He is doing it. The course begins the high school girls asked her to help at Joy Prom … so we by looking at the Bible as one story from Genesis to changed our schedule to make that happen. My daughter Revelation. Then it looks at how this story has continued said that Joy Prom was amazing and [it was] nothing short throughout history as well as how God is moving in the of beautiful to see the faces of the guests.