The Expression of Newness

A new church finds itself celebrating new milestones every week. With every step forward we take, whether it be our first Easter service or completing the framing work on the building, there is a wonderful sense of newness that weaves itself into everything we do. There is one new milestone we reached in August that communicates everything we are about, on a level that is more important than first meetings and completed building projects. I am talking about the celebration of new life within our family, as seen in our biggest milestone yet, our first water baptism!


What makes water baptism so special is that it symbolizes a work that has taken place within the life of a believer. That work being: The Holy Spirit grants newness of life, after one's guilt and sins are put to death through the death of Jesus on the cross. Water baptism communicates this work more effectively and poetically then any blog post, sermon, or theology book can. Every part of water baptism is symbolic: as one goes under the water they identify themselves with the death of Christ and His atoning work, and as one rises up from the water, they do so identifying themselves with the resurrection of Christ Jesus as He arose from the tomb. Water baptism then becomes a celebration of new life, purification, new hope, and joy that accompanies the work God has done within them upon belief.
This is what the term "born again" means, and with smiles and cheers from family and friends it is clear that one is born into a new family--a new community, as they are embraced by their brothers and sisters in Christ.
As a new church, we have several important steps and new projects yet to undertake, and water baptism serves as a clear and powerful reminder, in the midst of the hard work of church planting, why we do what we do: to celebrate God's redeeming work in the lives of His people, and to take that new life to the broken world in the form of a movement--The Redemption Movement.

1 Year Update

We are still here! It has been one year since our last blog post, let this be a testimony to the business of church planting, as well as the need for a technology volunteer. There is so much work to be done, and sadly, the old Mission Oneonta blog has taken a backseat to dry-walling and Bible studies. I want to give an update on the past year because we have been working hard and making progress, and most importantly, we are still here!

Fall 2010

• After initiating the Acts of Kindness ministry in July we continued to serve others. We cleaned more toilets and raked leaves as a practical way to share God's love. We also volunteered our time at Aldi's grocery store bagging groceries the day before Thanksgiving.
  

• Filming began on a promotional video for the church. This video will act as an effective tool to assist us in fundraising efforts.

Winter 2010-11

• Acts of Kindness continued with rinsing salt off cars and pre-loading washing machines with money at local laundry mats.
  

• After months of paperwork and designing floor plans, our building permits for renovating the storefront into a church was approved by the city. Demolition and building new basement steps began immediately in January.

• Before we tore the place up we dedicated the building with a candlelit worship service, complete with worship words sharpied onto the walls.

Spring 2011

• We tackled a community garden for Acts of Kindness! We transformed an empty lot in the back of the property into a garden with 10 garden lots available free to the community. We also had a free garden seed giveaway.

• We completed demolition work, hauling off 6,000 pounds of old walls and plaster, installed all new electrical wiring, and framed all the needed new walls.

• In the midst of all the construction, we celebrated our first Easter service downstairs.

• We drafted, passed, and submitted to the state our official articles of incorporation. As of July we are still waiting for the state to process the documents.

Summer 2011

• Drywall, drywall, and more drywall.

• Throughout the year, while all of this was going on, we had three teaching series that we went over during our Sunday evening small group Bible studies. 1. An in depth look at belief, 2. we went through the book of James, and 3. developing Christ-like character.

• Nice summer weather and long days made for some great church BBQ's.
  

• We are currently pursing a partnership with a church planting network.

Fall 2011

• For Acts of Kindness we showed SUNY Oneonta some love by helping the students move into their dorms.

• Bible study: the book of Ruth.

• We celebrated our first water baptism!