the vision
History
When Pastor Jon Harris started a gang ministry a dozen years ago out of a small church on Pennsylvania Avenue, he didn’t know that he was creating a path to a multi-service, multi-staff, multi-site church in a multi-ethnic region. The gang ministry effort started years of dramatic changes. And things keep moving – with even bigger events on the horizon.
Imagine what will happen next as New Life Church, which meets at Laurel Creek School and a Ministry Warehouse on Horizon Drive, prepares for the next step: Building on 11 acres adjacent to Interstate 80 between Fairfield and Vacaville.
This isn’t the first major move for New Life. Indeed, the changes that led to New Life Church came out of a Pastor Jon’s work with several dozen young men who lived in an older neighborhood near the Westfield Solano mall.
The early years
While the lure of gangs was drawing more and more youngsters in the early 1990s, Pastor Jon became pastor of a small Fairfield church while he planned to complete his education at the University of California, Berkeley.
As he prepared for classes, Jon met several young men around the church and began providing weight-lifting facilities for the teens in the neighborhood. Most of them were Latino and many were fledgling gang members who lacked male figures in their lives.
At the same time, Pastor Jon was inspired by Rick Warren’s seminal “Purpose- Driven Church,” book, which encouraged him to reinvent the way his traditional church did business. He saw the growing suburb as a place where thousands of people were without relationships with God and lacked a church home. If his congregation could reach many of those people, it wouldn’t only change lives for eternity, it could create resources to change the lives of young people like those with whom he was working.
Pastor Jon taught on the purposes of the church for a year and then a group of fewer than 40 adults moved out of the building to a local elementary school to begin New Life Church. It was 1996 and they imagined a church that made a difference in the lives of their friends, neighbors and co-workers.
Starting over
The group of several families not only moved to Laurel Creek School – then a new campus – but also brought a new format and began an effort that reached hundreds of people in the community. Officially launching on Easter, 1996, New Life grew rapidly, with Sunday morning attendance reaching more than 700 by its sixth year. Often bringing in special speakers – Smokey Robinson, Meadowlark Lemon, Marilyn McCoo and others have appeared on Sunday mornings – combined with high-profile outreach efforts, the church added a second, then a third morning service. In 2001, New Life switched locations to Fairfield High School and continued with three services.
All along the way, dozens of New Life volunteers arrived each week at the campus sites to set up the sound system, chairs, stages, children’s rooms and everything else involved in a “mobile church.” When the last service ended, dozens helped take down everything and put it back in storage for a week.
All along the trek, Pastor Jon and the church leadership pursued property – constantly reminding everyone that land isn’t the goal, but a strategy to continue to reach the community for Jesus.
New Life ultimately leased warehouse space on Horizon Drive to serve as its “ministry center” and headquarters for the teen ministry during the week. Over the years the warehouse space was used for occasional meetings, but the primary site of New Life worship services were the schools.
As the church grew and adjusted, the dream of property continued. New Life members pledged money toward someday purchasing property as they imagined what God would do as they continued to obey him where they were.
Growing without a building
In a fast-changing community, New Life Church faces a need for constant growth. “Frankly, we needed to grow at a fast rate just to maintain our attendance over the past three years,” Pastor Jon says.
And that led to the Warehouse services.
In the fall of 2007, New Life added a second venue – an 10,000-square-foot warehouse, with its own site pastor, worship band and a unique atmosphere. The second venue is a full-service New Life site, except the teaching is on video, shot at the existing campus. In several months since it started, the Warehouse has been very effective at reaching younger, unchurched visitors – which was the goal at its launch.
One of the things New Life has done well is raising up staff from its congregation. The entire pastoral staff came out of New Life’s ministries – one of the traditional measures of a church’s success.
Finally, land
As 2008 began, New Life leadership reached an agreement to purchase five acres adjacent to Interstate 80 between Fairfield and Vacaville – with the option to buy six other acres at any time in the next seven years. With 11 pristine acres at a high-profile location, Pastor Jon and New Life members are excited as they imagine a future with a beautiful multi-use facility as a headquarters for a multi-campus church that reaches the needs of the hundreds of thousands of people in the community.
Pastor Jon realizes it’s not simply about getting a building, but New Life can more effectively reach people from a permanent facility.
“God said ‘Go and build a great church and I’ll bring the city to you,’” he says. “One thing we have learned is we do not need a facility to evangelize the lost, to pray or to make disciples. Love does not need a building – but when we have a permanent building, we will be able to love the community in new, practical ways.”
Imagine what will happen.