NORTHSIDE COMMUNITY CHURCH IS A…
Fun-loving, friendly, community-minded, and Biblically grounded church for the whole family.

WE EXIST…
to see people move closer to Jesus!

OUR VISION
A church of diverse nations and ages worshipping Jesus together with a focused attention on making disciples who make disciples, building godly marriages & families and raising up passionate leaders.

  • Worshipping Jesus: Giving God alone the honour He deserves both publicly and privately with reverent hearts and abundant love, grateful for who He is and what He has done.
  • Reproducing Disciples: A humble and devoted follower of Jesus Christ on a journey to becoming more like Him through sacrificial obedience to His Word and the leading of His Holy Spirit.
  • Godly Marriage & Family: A grateful man and woman growing in love with God and each other, discipling their (if single parent his/her) children to worship God and reach their fullest potential in Christ.
  • Passionate Leader: An unstoppable drive to serve God and serve others by being the best at who we are in Christ and what we’ve been given by Christ so that those who follow will some day be even more passionate than us. 

THIS CAN HAPPEN IF WE COMMIT TO…

  • Passionately Pursuing God personally and corporately — through prayer, worship and Bible Study (Acts 2:42-43; 17:27)
  • Creating Meaningful and Healthy Community — every time we gather, through small groups and genuine friendships (Psalm 133:1; Acts 2:46-47; Hebrews 10:24-25)
  • Loving People Practically — by serving and meeting the needs of others (Acts 2:44-45)
  • Intentionally Seeking to Grow and Multiply — by stepping out in faith to serve and lead where God calls; and to share the Good News with others with the hope that they will do the same. 

OUR CULTURE

The following set of statements represent our culture – who we are and what we are becoming. They help to define who we are and serve as guiding the principles in how we operate to achieve the mission and vision. They influence the overall behaviour of the entire congregation and inspire people toward action. While there could be a lengthy list of statements, we have chosen to agree on the following and allow them to guide us in our ministry together.

The church is not built by the talents of a few, but on the sacrifices of many.

  • Jesus was the servant of all and no task was beneath Him. He demonstrated servant leadership among his chosen and ministered to the masses. The same is true of us. We don’t want to be a church that depends on a few people to see the work of God get done, but a church that works as a unit, together, seeing God’s desires happen around us. The church isn’t about boosting one person’s ego, one person’s ideas, or favouring one particular gifting over another. We are a movement of people using our gifts and talents not for our own personal glory or gain, but for the sake of Jesus and the expansion of His Kingdom.

We will honour others with our encouraging words, positive attitudes and by celebrating the successes of others.

  • The Bible tells us to “out do one another with honor” (Romans 12:10) and that our words have the power of life and death in them (Prov 18:21), and so we will be a church that uses our words to encourage, speak life, celebrate and build up those around us. We live in a competitive, me centered world, that doesn’t know how to celebrate the success of others, but being freed and secured in the grace of Jesus we want to live differently, speaking words that are sweet to one another’s soul. (Prov. 16:24).

We can’t do life alone.

  • The book of Ecclesiastes says, “9 Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil. 10 For if they fall, one will liftup his fellow. But woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up”! (4:9-10). We believe that the church is an ‘us’ and discipleship happens in relationships. Throughout the different seasons of our lives… the ups and down, heartaches and successes… we realize that we need and need to give to others the care, support, love, encouragement, joy, and help, and so we choose to do life together!

Times change, culture changes, methods change…but Jesus doesn’t.

  • To be successful, you have to be able to adapt to change. As a church, we choose to hold methods and ministries with open hands, knowing that as culture shifts what might be effective will shift.
  • But… our doctrine we still hold with a closed hand. The gospel never changes. The authority of Bible will never change. And we rest confidently in this tension between a timeless message and temporary methods. This doesn’t mean we will change things every week or change simply for the sake of change. We have a strategy and we want to be faithful to it, but that means we will constantly evaluate and rework our strategies as needed to fulfill our mission

 We operate in grace by putting relationships before results, conversation before criticism, and by forgiving quickly.

  • If grace is our message, grace should be the standard for our operation. This works itself out in three ways:
    • Relationship before results – people matter more than what they can produce. We will be a church that loves people first. We understand that the 90% of a person’s life we don’t see, has a huge effect on the 10% we do. We will never let the 10% be more important than the 90%. 
    • Conversations before Criticism – failure in a job, failure in communication, failure in life is inventible. And if Jesus gives us grace in our failure, we too will we give grace to others. Because people matter, we never want to assume the worst, and criticize from afar, we will engage in conversation, giving the benefit of the doubt before we give into a critical heart.
    • Forgiveness happens quickly – we refuse to hold grudges, harbor bitterness, and spread unnecessary conflict. If we have issues, we will deal with them graciously and with a heart of forgiveness caring more for the relationship than the offense.

 We will live generously.

  • At the heart of God is generosity. He gave his best for us. Jesus gave up all that He had to give us a blessing far beyond our imagination. We will be a church that holds all we have – our time, talent, and treasure – with open hands. We want to bless our own people, bless our community, and bless the Kingdom of God around us. As a family and as individuals we choose to reflect God’s heart in our generosity.

 Excellence honours God. We will give our best, with what we have.

  • Excellence isn’t having a big budget, but doing our best with what we have. Halfhearted efforts produce poor results and dishonour the time, talents, and opportunities God gives us and others. Paul tells us that whatever we do, we must do unto the Lord (1 Cor. 10:31). We will give our best in all we do, to the glory of God.

 Our calling outweighs our comfort.

  • Our mission is seeing people move closer to Jesus, and so we must endeavour to do whatever needs to be done to see that happen. Doing things that are outside of our comfort zones to reach the people we are called to reach is the task we are given in an ever-changing world.

 We will make the most of our strengths, by not being afraid to step out in faith.

  • Trying to do everything means we won’t excel at anything. Instead, we will maximize the opportunities that flow from our natural strengths and the areas where God has graced us to succeed in. Our strengths will not keep us from taking steps of faith into any and every area that God may be leading us.

Pray first. Plan second.

  • The very first action is always to pray. We don’t want to do anything that hasn’t been brought before God. He is the leader of this; His will is what we seek. But we also must plan. As the adage goes, if we fail to plan, we plan to fail. Vision remains fantasy when we don’t put action to it.