Annual Pastor's Report

This past weekend was the Arizona District Assembly. All the Nazarene churches on the district (about 60) gather and give a report on what God is doing in their local congregation. The biggest part of policy passed was a change in the district budget amount. There has been a confusing formula that dictated how much each church contributed to the denomination, now each church gives a straight 10% from all income. Here is my report...

Dr. Porter, Dr. Schortinghouse and Assembly,
At last assembly we changed our name from Desert Hills Fellowship to NorthGate. The intent was to better reflect our membership and mission area. We followed this up by articulating a vision to make Christlike disciples in our context. This was a year of risk and reward.
My staff and I compiled two resources to equip our people for evangelism and discipleship. The first we titled “The I.M.A.G.E. Profile”. This is to help people discover the truth that they are created in the image of God and have dignity. The second resource is “The Spiritual Life Coach”. We defined a discipleship lifestyle as, A Jesus Community – always seeking to know God, connect with people and serve others. The Life Coach is a reference guide for spiritual practices that are means of grace in healing the image of God in people.
Desiring to be missional and chase the vision, we planned on spending 5 weeks in a new movie theater to reach an adjacent neighborhood to the church building. Attendance rose and we decided to spend another month there for a total of 9 weeks. It was a fitting place to celebrate the Church of the Nazarene’s centennial birthday. A man named Mitch who lost his wife to cancer donated $500 to sponsor a Sunday in the theater. He wasn’t a church attender but after visiting a worship service he is now faithful to Christ and the Church.
God is still moving,

Pastor Jimmy Farley