A few years back, Cross of Hope Church in Parma Heights, Ohio, was at a crossroads, of sorts. Back then, they were still known as Parma Heights Baptist, a name they had held since they were planted in 1954. For decades, they were the church everyone in the community already knew about due to the large cross on their steeple and their big events – Easter Sunday, Christmas services, and summer VBS programs.
Senior Pastor Dr. Shane Prewitt described this visibility in the community as the “plus and minus of our church;” people were familiar with the church, but what they knew was mostly about their events, not who they were as people or their Gospel testimony. When Shane became senior pastor in 2019, he knew they needed to become more than a come-and-see church that put on big events.
“We can do those type of things,” Pastor Shane said. “But we have really got to teach our people to be missional in their lives. We have to recognize God has placed us strategically where we’re at in this generation for a reason.”
The kind of missional imagination Pastor Shane and the people of Cross of Hope share is at the heart of the NAB. Because God is a missionary God at work in the world, our joy-filled task is to discern that work and receive his invitation to join with him. When you give to the Ministry Resource Fund, you are, in part, creating space for NAB leaders and churches to expand their own missional imaginations through trainings like Blue Ocean, Year of Equipping, Discovery Project, and Bonfire. In essence, each gift plays a small part in training churches and their leaders to bring the hope found only in Jesus to the world around us.
Shortly after Shane took on his role as senior pastor, the world shut down from the COVID-19 pandemic. While this was certainly a rough patch for Cross of Hope, as it was for many churches, this time allowed them to reexamine the things that needed to be reexamined.
“We really want to think of ministry in a different way,” said Pastor Shane. “Instead of looking at our church property as the place where God works, how do we train our people here to go out into the harvest fields and do ministry where they’re at?” . . .
All across the NAB, churches like Cross of Hope are embracing God’s missional identity as they pursue multiplication and discover where God is already at work in their neighborhoods and communities. Whether it was due to trainings provided through Blue Ocean, Ethos, or even Year of Equipping, or through sending individuals to Fit Assessment or Bonfire, churches across the NAB are growing in these efforts. Your gift today of $50, $100, $500, or more will greatly assist us in supporting local NAB churches as they share the hope found only in Jesus Christ.
You can also give by clicking on one of the links below or by texting your gift amount, followed by “SUMMER”, to (204) 400-2238 for Canadian giving or to (916) 249-0534 for US giving.
Canadians can also give via e-transfer using givecanada@nabconf.org with “Summer” in the note field.
For the past year, a group of twenty- and thirty-something leaders from across the NAB have been gathering monthly as part of the inaugural Year of Equipping cohort. (You can read their reflections from the Vancouver, Detroit, and Chicago in-person gatherings.) The time has come for us to begin putting together the Year 2 cohort of emerging leaders within the NAB, those individuals in their twenties and thirties who hold some position of ministry leadership in the church, or even in a parachurch organization.
The Year of Equipping consists of three, three-month modules, each reflecting the three modules in Blue Ocean. Each module will have multiple components: a book pertaining to the subject matter, Zoom discussions, and one in-person meeting. The goal of this experience is to develop and enrich the relationships of our emerging leaders, to provide instruction and conversation about the movement of God in the world and how we participate, and to deepen the preparation of our emerging leaders for the future of the NAB.
If you are or know a twenty-something leader in your church, we welcome you to apply for the Year 2 cohort using the link below. The deadline to apply is June 20.
Apply for Year of Equipping: Year 2
The latest edition of MIT Monthly, the Missional Initiatives newsletter, arrived in email inboxes last week, and, as always, it is full of stories, resources, and practices to help and encourage you as you seek what God is up to in your neighborhood and join him on mission.
This most recent newsletter includes a reflection from Luke Miller on the importance, and difficulty, of spiritual rhythms in our lives; a story from Rob Cripps, a participant in the most recent cohort of Blue Ocean, on the impact of unplugging from digital distractions to create room for the Holy Spirit to interrupt his plans; an invitation to the 2025/26 cohort of Blue Ocean; and a few resources to guide you along your missional/formational journey.