Staff Blog

re:view and pre:view 2009-2010

December 24, 2009 Posted By bruce

Christmas newsletter 2009-2010

calvary chapel nexus: re:view – reflections and pre:view – vision

we’re passionate about seeing people connect with God and with one another, we love to see people grow and become spiritually mature in their relationship with Jesus, and our desire is to equip people to reach our community and impact our world for God. Yet, the most important issue is whether God is making a difference in lives through this local church? The answer is yes! The stories of changed lives are too numerous to tell … so here’s a snapshot – lookin’ in the rearview and then looking forward:

re:view - what makes calvary different is our emphasis on teaching through the Scriptures. Each week we study through books of the Bible. People who learn the Word in context tend to respond to God. We believe this is the best way to help people connect with God. God has continued to draw people to Himself through His word so that we now teach about 1,000 adults every Sunday. The church has a rep as a strong Bible teaching community where people love God, others, and are living His word.

we also have been blessed to see people connect with God through our large-scale outreach events. In spring, the women’s ministry hosted their 3^rd “Daughters of the King” conference for a packed house. We continue to celebrate the Resurrection with an outdoor service for a family of about 2,500 at the Camarillo House on Easter Sunday. During the summer we had the privilege of organizing a gathering of fifteen churches for an all-city service “One” where about 8,000 joined together to worship God. calvary chapel nexus gathered outdoors as a huge church community for “church at the park” and enjoyed our great weather, beautiful parks, worshiped, ate, swam, and played together.

we continue to see people in our church family grow in their relationship with God. We have become a church of small groups rather than simply a church with small groups. The majority of people in our church family are involved in mid-week community and lives are being transformed. As our Sunday church community has expanded it has become increasingly important to connect and grow in smaller groups during the week. We’ve also been blessed to see people grow in our expanding youth ministries, college group, and school of ministry.

we also thank God for using us to reach our community. Our “beyond sunday” ministry hosted large-scale quarterly projects to help seniors, schools, the environment, and provide gifts for Christmas. They also reach the community through ongoing efforts with youth correctional facilities, our pregnancy center, the rescue mission, and a food pantry. We continue to go global to impact the world for Jesus as we have helped to establish and support Bible teaching churches throughout the world. Last year we sent teams to Managua, Nicaragua, Ensenada and Vicente Guerrero, Mexico, and Nairobi, Kenya.

pre:view - looking forward to 2010 and beyond: we are presently in our 3^rd building project in 5 years. God has been steadily growing His church at calvary chapel nexus but we are reaching a functional capacity at our current Mobil Ave. campus. Lord willing we will start a second campus on Lewis Road in Camarillo at the former Imation building in Spring 2010. The space is about 25,000 square feet and will allow us to serve another 1,000-plus. In addition to Sunday services with live teaching we are prepared to begin a youth center for our community. We will offer an after school program for junior and senior high students featuring: sports, mentoring, tutoring, art, performing arts [music and video], and games. The youth will not only have a safe and fun place to gather but they will learn about Jesus every day. Our plan is to offer the youth center to our community free of charge.

our only goal is to introduce people to an intimate relationship with the True and Living God who never changes yet reaches each new generation in a fresh way. I’m grateful for this last year and look forward to discovering what God will do this coming season …