Our Core Beliefs | Our Focus | Future Plans | Our History
Our Leadership | Our Product | Our Purpose

Churches, just like businesses, need to have a product that they’re known for by the public. Without a product a church really doesn’t exist in the community. Without a product you’re invisible, not recognized, not publicized, and not patronized. Some churches, for example, have fish dinners, musicals, soup kitchens, bingo, abortion rallies, Boy Scouts, or sports leagues. These are the kinds of things that have set them apart and given them a reputation that attract people.

The true product of the church, however, is developing disciples. These other things aren’t bad, but they’re only by-products that can aid or hinder the process of developing disciples. When all of those other things are what the church stakes it’s reputation on often discipleship becomes secondary or even optional. That causes people to join for fleshly motivated or other reasons, and churches turn into consumer-based, competitive shopping centers. This causes the development of programs to become more important than the development of people. This keeps people’s lives from being changed because disciples are not being produced.

The process? How is a product created? One basic example is:

Raw materials + special processing agents = intermediate products

intermediate products --> processing plant = finished products

For us the raw materials are the unsaved. The special processing agents are our members. When you mix the unsaved with our members the intermediate product should be a believer. You then take that new believer and send them repeatedly through the processing plant called the church and the final product is a disciple.

Matthew 28:19 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:”

Jesus instructed the disciples (special processing agents) to mix with the unsaved (raw materials) and create believers (intermediate products).

Matthew 28:20 “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.”

Jesus wasn’t interested in new believers that could become human resources for the latest church growth program idea. He knew they needed to be further developed like the disciples and sent through the processing plant to become disciples (finished products).

The Formula? ABC(W) = D

John  8:30 “As he spake these words, many believed on him.”

Jesus as a special processing agent mixed with the unsaved (raw materials) and created new believers (intermediate products).

John 8:31 “Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;”

Jesus knew that it takes disciples, not mere believers, to change the world. A believer that continues in the gardening club, and coordinating the fish dinners is considered an active member. A Believer that Continues in the Word is a Disciple.

This is why at New Hope Fellowship our product is disciples. By-products will be used to help create disciples, but they will not be our primary focus.

Our motto: “Success in God is a changed life, first mine then someone else’s”.

For more information on “The Product” go to the sermon link and read the sermons entitled “The Product” (Parts I, II and III).