Now Showing at The Fillmore: Restore Church
From the very beginning New Life had a goal of helping start, or plant, healthy churches. Our goal was not to just start one church, but many. God far surpassed our expectations by working up to one church plant a year, all the while, allowing us have a significant role in over 80 churches in just 19 years.
Through the years ,we have helped thousands of other new churches through the many online resources and/or the software we have made freely available. Others have been sent financial aid or even staff members and volunteers to help get them started. We are also partnering with Compassion International and Stadia to plant a church in South America. But our heart is for the Washington/Baltimore corridor. When we can plant close to home, we get really excited.
To accelerate our ability to plant churches in our area, we formed a network of about ten churches and several church planting organizations with a desire to reach our communities for Christ. The DC area continues to grow and yet is losing churches. We want to turn that around.
One “under-churched” community is Silver Spring, Maryland. Silver Spring is home to a very diverse group of roughly 75,000 people. The vast majority are between 25 & 45 years old and do not attend church. While there are already several great churches in the area, there are not nearly enough for the number of people who live in and immediately around the city center.
Enter Aaron Thomas. He, his wife Karrie, and their children moved to Silver Spring to rectify that. They worked for about a year laying ground work, meeting people in the community, and beginning to minister to the people of Silver Spring. They”ve already made a difference in the community through several service projects and just launched public services in The Fillmore a couple weeks ago. If you aren”t familiar, The Fillmore is a fantastic music venue similar to The State theater in Falls Church where The Surge Church meets.
We”d encourage you to go check out Restore sometime. Pray for them. And if you want to help, consider going up on a Sunday morning to help out. Without weekday traffic the drive is only about 45 minutes.
So what”s next? We’ve hired a church planter to plant in downtown Baltimore. More on that project later. And after that? Well, we are still praying. We always have Alexandria and the Rt 1 corridor in our prayers. We are also looking at a community just across the river in Delaware. Who knows where God will lead!