Unlikely

Make plans to join Northwest Community Church for our weekly worship gatherings on Sundays, November 8th and 15th at 10am at Cooper Elementary in Bella Vista as we share with you the exciting and even unlikely ways God is directing the future of our church. Join us as we unpack the big steps of faith God is leading Northwest to take in 2016 that will lead to greater service in our community and around the world. Come with an expectant attitude and be prepared to consider the question...How am I going to participate in the future of Northwest Community Church?

And remember, you can catch up on all the recent messages at Northwest on our media page or by subscribing to the Northwest podcast on iTunes.

   

Primed

Northwest has designed an exciting summer of growth for you and your family focused around something called "the gospel".  You may be wondering, "What is the gospel?" Over the next few weeks, your family will discover that the gospel is the good news that Jesus Christ has come to rescue and restore people. Even though the gospel is very simple to understand, it is also designed to have a deep impact on your life and the people around you.

During the summer, we are going to experience the gospel together in 3 ways:

Teach It
Beginning on Sunday, June 7th Northwest will begin an 8 week series entitled Primed.  During this series we will celebrate the good news of Jesus Christ and learn how to apply it to our lives. We will also equip you to share this good news with other people in your life.

Live It
During our summer semester of community groups, each group will be learning how the gospel is to shape life in community as they walk through a resource entitled The Gospel Primer.  Remember our summer groups launch the week of June 7th. Be sure to signup and don't miss out.

 
Do It 
Finally, this summer we are going to put the gospel into action.  You will be given several opportunities to serve your community and share the gospel in natural ways with your friends and neighbors. Be sure to listen for more details for events such as the movie nights at Metfield Park, Adventure Camp led by Northwest Kids, and the service project we will host at Cooper Elementary.  

Our prayer is that the summer of 2015 will be a defining time in the life of your family and in the life of Northwest Community Church. We pray that God will highlight the transformational power of the gospel in our lives and use everyone at Northwest to point people to Him.  

Philemon and the Power of Jesus Christ

Yesterday Northwest Community Church kicked off a new teaching series on one of the shortest books in the Bible. Over the next 3 weeks we are going to walk through Philemon together and discover some incredible things about the power of Jesus Christ.  We will see how God is able to use a short letter (Philemon contains less than 450 words, is organized into only 25 verses, and takes less than 5 minutes to read) to highlight Jesus Christ's ability to reach people, change people, and forgive people. When you combine God's Word with a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you have the recipe for life-change not only in your life but also in the lives of people around you. Remember, God has been changing people's lives for centuries and the book of Philemon is a perfect example of the lengths God is willing and able to go in order to reach people and transform them.

Sundays, May 17, 24, & 31 at Northwest Community Church

During week 1 of the series, we walked through the first ten verses of Philemon and introduced the three main characters of this powerful letter. We met Philemon, Paul, and Onesimus. Philemon was a wealthy, influential businessman, a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ, and a man who was known for his ability to refresh and encourage other people. The Apostle Paul was writing to Philemon while imprisoned in Rome for preaching about Jesus Christ. Onesimus was a runaway slave with a shady past who eventually gave his life to Jesus Christ and experienced dramatic life-change and forgiveness.

If you missed week 1 of the Philemon series be sure to listen to our podcast and read Philemon 1-10 during one of your quiet times later this week. As you do, keep in mind that the book of Philemon shows us the power of Jesus Christ and His ability to reach people no matter where they are in life. Onesimus had a shady past and was running from his problems and yet God allowed him to cross paths with Paul in a Roman prison. Meanwhile Paul was suffering imprisonment and God gave purpose to his suffering and allowed Paul to lead Onesimus to Christ. And then finally Philemon was riding a wave of success and was suddenly given an opportunity to be an example to the world of what forgiveness and faith is all about.  Wow! Jesus Christ truly has the ability to cut across all barriers and circumstances to reach people no matter where they are in life.

Finally, we challenge you to ask yourself three questions as you study the introduction to Philemon:

1. Am I willing to give God my past?
2. Am I willing to trust God in the midst of pain and trials?
3. Am I willing to surrender my success to God and trust Him with my future?

Papua New Guinea Building Trip

On March 14, Will Blanchard, Kent Doughty, Dave Pinti, and I left Northwest Arkansas and headed to Papua New Guinea for 13 days to finish building a missionary house in the mountains in a tribe called Wantakia. It took 30 hours of travel, including 5 airplanes and 1 helicopter, but we final made it to the ends of the earth! It’s crazy to think that this tribe has such little access to the outside world that they’ve never even heard the name “Jesus” before. Well, our plan is to change that. We are partnering with BJ and Jill Sanders and their team to make the name of Jesus famous not only in Wantakia, but all over the mountains of PNG.

When we arrived, BJ and Jill's house still had a long way to go. Our hope was to finish the house by the time we left, but that task seemed impossible. We decided on 3 very important rules that would guide us each day. 1) Quantity, get as much done as fast as we can. 2) Quality, we used tape measures most of the time and sometimes we even used a square. 3) Safty, "safety third" was repeated frequently during our days of work - especially when a ladder was balanced on the side of a hill using a large stone.

Each day we worked as hard as we could, from sun-up to sun-down, barely even breaking for meals. We even worked most nights with head lamps and flashlights. As we were building the house, the local people watched our every move and followed us around everywhere. They are so excited, and they don't even realize what Good News they are about to hear! So, after putting in about six 14 hour days, we were able to see the house finished! We were even able to do work on the other 2 houses. So, all three families moved into their tribal homes this weekend!

The trip was a huge success, so I want to thank you on behalf of Northwest for all for your prayers and support.

Scott Sanders
Student and Missions Pastor @ Northwest

If you’d like to stay updated on ways you can pray for this team, check out www.reachwantakia.com. 

Also be sure to check out a recent video the team posted the day before they left.