By: Michael Strong, Church Planter in Minneapolis, MN

Greetings, brothers and sisters in Christ! I am excited to report back to you about the work God is doing in Minnesota. We are seeing people come to Christ, others commit (and some re-commit) themselves to Christ, and a growing group of people from diverse backgrounds take new steps of faith as they prepare to meet King Jesus face to face one day. It has been an honor and a pleasure serving as your partner to these beloved Minnesotans. 

We are currently working in Minneapolis, and God is helping us begin to reach the 31,397 people that live in our ZIP code. Our primary means of reaching people is through relational evangelism that results in Bible studies. We consistently kept roughly 20 different Bible study and discipleship groups active over the last year. The number continues to grow as more of our people step out in faith and start new groups. We expect that number will continue to increase exponentially. Some of the more exciting results in the last year include eight new salvations accompanied by baptism. Almost 100% of those baptized have followed through on their commitment to Jesus by joining intentional personal discipleship groups led by  our church leaders. 

We are also broadening our missional scope by reaching out to the community through various service projects. We take being the hands and feet of King Jesus seriously and look for ways to love our neighbors and equip and mobilize our people to do the same. We have been teaching the church how to serve the people closest to them and how to share the hope of the gospel of Jesus Christ with them. This has broadened our impact and is leading to growth in missional interactions. We live as a family and do a lot of life-on-life together. This allows us to serve each member’s family and friends together. The uniqueness of our blood-bought community showcases how different the church is from the world. We are seeing a growing number of people who are beginning to associate with our group and attend functions we host. 

God is giving our people compassionate hearts. They have been speaking up in recent months and we have heard them loud and clear: They want to use their gifts to serve their neighbors. Some desire to cook. Others desire to help with house repairs. Some desire to share their testimony at schools. Some desire to help with the children in the church. One member has increasingly embraced the role of greeter! They clean up, share, and volunteer in the community in many ways. As you may imagine, their hearts are bigger than their pocketbooks. We have been relying on partners to provide the necessary supplies to reach out to the community. The need and desire is growing in our church. We are praying for new partners and increased commitments from existing partners in the coming months as we deploy our people in groups to reach the city and call lost sheep into the fold. 

We have been intentionally small to this point because we wanted to invest significantly in the core group of the church. We believe in regenerative church membership. Our worship services are focused on helping believers see and worship God in the Scriptures. We also use those times to equip these saints to experience spiritual maturity and to form Christlikeness in them. After our services we send them out full of the gospel and encouraged to share the hope they have with others. We believe this will result in a disciple-making movement that will lead to a church planting movement as we raise and train up leaders. We are now at a point where growth could happen a bit more quickly, and this will bring new challenges. We are excited about the opportunity to seek God and rely on him in the coming months as he helps us navigate the changes he will bring into our church and our lives.

I am so thankful to share what God has done in 2022 with you and I look forward to updating you in the near future on what God continues to do. If you are interested in partnering with us or receiving our newsletter, please reach out to me via email: mike@nnccmpls.com. Thank you for partnering with us to take the gospel to Minnesota!