Matt Miller and his team launched New City Church this past weekend to celebrate with 322 new people finding their way back to God!  Matt did his Leadership Residency with Troy McMahon (Lead Pastor of RESTORE - NewThing church in Kansas City) and Dan Southerland (Lead Pastor of Westside Family Church - NewThing church also in KC).  We are excited and proud of what God is doing through Matt and his team.  I look forward to hearing stories of life change and people finding their way back to God - praise God for New City Church!  To see pics from their launch visit NewThing's Facebook page here.

I've had the opportunity to spend some time with one of our more recently planted NewThing churches: Vintage Church in Paris, France.  Bill and Rachel Carroll, who were on staff at COMMUNITY for about 12 years, moved from Chicago to plant this new church plant to reach those far from God. 

Paris is a very difficult city to plant a new church.  Not because of the food, wine or scenery...but because of the disdain or even disgust towards anything that resembles organized religion.  In fact, about 1-2% of Paris is categorized as churched.  This hasn't stopped God using Bill and Rachel to reach the Parisian community though. 

Today we celebrated Thanksgiving with Vintage Church, with almost 70 people coming in and enjoying a American tradition of food, fun and football.  The best part was hearing the French language being spoken all around us as we enjoyed the American tradition together.  Not only that, as a community, they cooked 3 very large turkeys, to make sure there was plenty handout to the homeless community around Paris (they also distributed blankets).

I am very proud of their leadership and grateful for us here at NewThing to play a small part in their growing church.  Way to go Vintage Church!

Hank Wilson planted REUNION Christian Church with a goal to helping people find their way back to God.  Boston, MA is a very difficult place to plant a church, but that hasn't stopped Hank's team from dreaming and going after the Jesus mission relentlessly.  Recently they were able to celebrate the growth and outreach of REUNION with a brand new campus:

Sunday, Oct 23, REUINON launched its second location in the historic Somerville Theatre.  According to Joel Daniels (recently a Leadership Resident) the Campus Pastor, there was a sense of excitement and anticipation as the set-up team hurried to set up the main gathering space, REUNIONkids' rooms and hospitality area filled with food and coffee.  He said everyone was doing their part to ensure a successful first day.  Joel describes the experience as being incredible as people and conversation filled up the space totaling their outreach to 152 people - praise God!  NewThing is grateful and proud of the REUNION team - congrats!

A value add in being a network is increased diversity.  Within NewThing we have lots of different type of churches: urban plants, mega-multisites, rural plants, multi-ethnic plants, organic, missional, justice oriented...you name it!  This past weekend I got to experience all of those forms in just 2 church plants.

Greg Hunt, lead church planter, leads a funky, diverse, organic missional community in El Paso, Texas. This church plant sits across the border from Juarez Mexico.  Unless you live under a rock, you know Juarez is not exactly a safe place.  But Greg and his wife Jill and 3 kids want to reach all people for Jesus and that includes the ofter over-looked communities just across the border.  If you are looking to support a mission that really gets it, you need to invest in this community with prayer, people and plenty of pesos - go Paseo Church!

Nate Bush, lead planter of New City Church, leads a community of ragamuffins reaching out to those who are far from God in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  I had the privilege of spending time with Nate's team as they shared their passion for Albuquerque.  I also got to hang with someone in their community who described himself as a seeker - what an honor to be so close to someone who is on their first steps to find their way back to God.  Everyone should invest time, money and people into the work these guys and gals are doing - love New City Church!

Super proud of the leaders within these church and their families.  If you find yourself interested in the Southwest or want to explore reaching out to the Latino community contact Nate or Greg or contact us as we are currently taking steps to build momentum behind a NewThing Latino Network in an effort to increase our bi-lingual & Spanish-speaking church planting.  If you're interested in learning more, reach out to us at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or follow us on twitter: newthingnetwork.