Rejoicing & Reaching: Capital Campaign
Whether you’ve never been to church or you are fully engaged in following Jesus, there’s a place for you at NBCC, and everyone is welcome.
NBCC is a uniquely diverse church – in age and stage, culture and class. We believe that the diversity of our church reflects the truth that God really does love all people. Our pastors carry with them a deep commitment to a church that reflects God’s heart for all. NBCC was born out of a desire to join this value with a passion for excellence that embraces big dreams. We are willing to try new things in order to communicate God’s love to those who have given up on church.
We meet people where they are at and engage the world with hospitality and generosity.
We help people to live like Jesus did – with the same God-given purpose and an extraordinary love and grace for others that can truly change the world.
We care about relationships, and we help people to thrive by taking intimacy, honesty, and forgiveness seriously within their own families and the church as a family.
We serve our neighbors and our community to bring greater justice, freedom and joy.
They are distinct from what we believe; instead, they govern how we lead, serve, and make decisions. They are perhaps the best representation of who we are as a church.
We celebrate and cultivate our diversity of age, stage, class, and culture, because that’s what heaven will be like, and we might as well start enjoying it now
(Inspired by Revelation 7:9).
We are serious about collaboration and partnership in everything we do (Inspired by 1 Corinthians 3:9).
Character is who we are before God, and reputation is how others perceive us. If we focus on character, we’ll never have to worry about our reputation (Inspired by Psalms 25:20-21).
We give up things we love for things we love even more.
God wants to hear from us, we need to hear from God, and prayer really does change things — including our own hearts (Inspired by 1 Thessalonians 5:17).
The most important person in our church is the one who isn’t here yet.
We will be generous with others and with God, because God has been amazingly generous to us.
We rely on the reality that with God all things are possible (Inspired by Matthew 19:26).
We value friendship and forgiveness. We give people the benefit of the doubt and ask when we don’t understand something (Inspired by John 13:34).
We bring our best to things that matter, and we believe the things of God truly matter (Inspired by Colossians 3:23).
The Apostle's Creed
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died and was buried. He descended to the dead. The third day He rose again. He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian* Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.
Amen.
*Christian: the ancient text reads “catholic,” meaning the whole Church as it confesses the wholeness of Christian doctrine.
He is our Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer. Immeasurable in power, incomprehensible in love, infinite in goodness—God overflows with unimaginable beauty and wonder. God abounds in mercy and grace and is the very source of life and light. The triune essence of God exists in a perfect and unified relationship between the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Creation in its grand diversity belongs to God—all of it! Yet, God invites us to explore, discover, learn, steward, cherish and care for that which has been entrusted to us by Him. God uniquely created human beings in His own image. Because of this, we believe all human beings have a sacred dignity and an incalculable worth because God values them beyond our ability to measure. This intrinsic dignity and worth within every individual cannot be lost, stolen nor eradicated no matter how broken humanity becomes. It always remains.
Life within and around humanity has been shattered by sin into innumerable irreconcilable pieces. The image of God, while still present in each individual, is defaced and disfigured. Existing amid the shattered pieces are pain, suffering and human darkness at a level that is often unbearable and unimaginable. In this brokenness is found sickness, death, war, injustice, disease, demonic evil and devastation of all kinds. It is sin that naturally puts us against God, each other, creation and even our own selves. We are both perpetrators and victims of sin. We are powerless and helpless to free ourselves from its grip within us and its impact around us.
This is real love—not that we loved God, but that He first loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. In this act, God determined that what is irreconcilable for humanity can be redeemed and reconciled in Jesus.
Jesus, fully God, walked among us revealing to a shattered world the heart and power of God the Father. Jesus healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, fed the hungry, lifted the poor, set the oppressed free and raised the dead—teaching us that no one is beyond the reach of God’s eyes or His love. In Jesus, the unmarred image of the invisible God is seen perfectly. Jesus, fully God but also fully human, showed each of us the possibilities for humanity when in full alignment with the will and purpose of God.
Jesus shed redeeming blood for lost humanity and atoned for the sins of all who place their faith in Him. His suffering places Him alongside all those victimized by unspeakable brutality and evil. This Jesus was born of the virgin Mary, conceived by the Holy Spirit, suffered, died and was buried. On the third day He conquered sin and death and rose from the dead with all authority of heaven and earth in His hands. He ascended to heaven and now sits at the right hand of the Father.
Today, Jesus invites those who place their faith in Him to join Him in His grand ministry. God desires us to live a full and abundant life. Our new life in Jesus starts the day we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior! We are saved from an eternity separated from God because of God’s mercy and instead, because of God’s grace, we are granted eternal life with Him in heaven.
The Holy Spirit, with the Father and the Son, is worshipped and glorified. In the Holy Spirit, the Creator and Redeemer join in the life of every believer—filling, sanctifying and empowering us to do what we can never do on our own. It is the Holy Spirit who fills the life of the believer with the fruit of maturity and character as well as with spiritual gifts of power and ability. The work of the Holy Spirit makes us more like Jesus in character and empowers us to continue the ministry of Jesus in the world.
God demonstrated the power of His love for us by tangibly communicating it. The Holy Spirit inspired prophets, apostles and disciples of old as they brought forth the witness of the Old and New Testaments. Holy Scripture, in every generation, is our unique and authoritative guide in faith and action. One aspect of His communication is through the Bible. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is the Word of God, brought into reality through the work of God’s Holy Spirit. It reveals to us the mind, heart and nature of God and His will for humanity.
This Church is filled with a people who are at the same time sinners and saints—a people saved and sanctified not by their own works but by the finished work (grace) of their Savior. This worldwide and beautifully diverse community of believers is sustained by the sacraments of Baptism and Communion. In the waters of Baptism, the Holy Spirit seals the believer as she or he publically affirms a commitment to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and membership in His holy Church. These waters remind us of the grace of God that washes away our sins and sanctifies us. The Lord’s Supper, also known as Communion or the Holy Eucharist, is that mystical experience whereby the broken and sinful Church is made holy and whole. The sinner in us is sanctified through the forgiveness of sins; the saint in us is matured through the work of the Holy Spirit. These two sacraments—along with the ongoing redeeming work of the Holy Spirit and the witness of God’s Word centered in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ—fill, sustain, mature and make holy the one universal Church whose members live in both time and eternity. Jesus Christ, alone, is the Head of the Church. And the Church is His! His Church will remain victorious upon the earth, against the very gates of hell, until our Lord returns to make all things new and set all things right!
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