CELEBRATE ADVENT

Northwest Gospel Church and Summit View Church have been close friends and partners in ministry for many years. Both churches are part of the Acts29 network and are closely aligned in philosophy and theology of ministry. SVC has been in a season of transition with their lead pastor role since early 2023. It’s during this season that the leadership of both churches began asking if it was the Lord’s desire that NGC and SVC join as one organization for the sake of the gospel. Each leadership team spent months in prayer and discussion as well as seeking the council of church ministry consultants. As the dialog progressed it seemed good to us and to the Holy Spirit to bring our churches together into a unified family of churches.

The leadership teams of Summit View Church and Northwest Gospel Church firmly believe this partnership presents a unique opportunity to combine our strengths, resources, and vision to better serve our communities and further the mission of God throughout the Portland metro area.

Each Local Elder Team is responsible for the shepherding, care, and oversight of their local congregation. The Local elders meet each month to pray and care for their local body. Each member at each local church will be assigned an elder who will check in with them, pray for them and serve the member families of that church. The Local Elder Team will also provide updates or bring major subjects or decision points to the Full Council of Elders who will jointly lead and serve the congregations.

A multichurch “is a local community of Christians that matures and multiplies its influence through launching, developing and resourcing multiple congregations to reach its city with the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Within the multichurch framework certain elements will be shared across all the churches. Each church shares a common vision, doctrinal statement, ministry philosophy, and core values. Our ministry distinctives of expositional preaching, baptism and celebrating the Lord’s Supper each week will be shared across all our church families.

Other elements will be unique to their context. Each local church will have a unique ministry designed to equip the family of faith and serve their local community. But rest assured, every time we gather, you will see and hear the gospel faithfully being sung, preached, and lived out together in community.

As we think about what ministry looks like as a partnership of five church families, we envision each church contextualizing ministry to reach their local community. We also see many opportunities for the churches to combine efforts and resources in areas such as youth and kids ministry, men’s and women’s ministry, missions trips, worship nights, and church planting.

What excites us most about doing ministry together is that leaders will be developed, elders will shepherd, deacons will lead, members will serve, community groups will encourage, churches will be planted – and the gospel will be preached to the glory of Jesus Christ.

The mere number of churches is not the target. A core value that drives much of what we do is to plant and build the church as we equip the church to be the church. We want to be a part of a movement of disciple-making churches that is planting churches all over our region. Multiplying healthy churches is essential to equip and empower the body of Christ to reach our local communities with the gospel. This partnership presents a unique opportunity to combine our strengths and resources to better serve our communities and further the mission of God throughout the Portland metro area.

Yes! The beauty of the multichurch model is you can attend the congregation closest to your home and become meaningfully involved in your local community. If you would like to move your membership and begin attending another church closer to home, please connect with your shepherding elder to begin the process.

Absolutely not. The Lord has done - and will still do - wonderful work through the people who make up these local churches. We are grateful for the rich and meaningful gospel influence that SVC and NGC have had in Clark County. We believe this is not the end of a kingdom story, but the scaling of it. This is two multichurches combining in an open-handed and kingdom-minded way. Our prayer is that through this family of churches, the history and legacy of each local church will be honored and the kingdom impact going forward will grow exponentially – for the glory of God and the fame of his name.