Church planting
Lord willing, it is our desire to plant churches in similar contexts as our own, by training and sending out teams. We have a desire to plant 2 churches in adjacent New Bedford neighborhoods, and one in another nearby city.
This means that we are praying and asking God to send us Church-Planting-Missionaries to live and serve the in inner-cities of New England. Our other prayer is that he would raise up indigenousness Church Planters from our city to plant and establish faithful churches. These positions do require a long-term commitment.
Our desired applicants for Church Planters are men called to pastoral ministry who have already had some ministry experience within the local church, experience working with people from complicated backgrounds, and some theological training.
Like all of our positions, this is a self-funded position. We provide training and support for fundraising, as well as ongoing care for your family upon arrival.
You can expect to be:
Sharing about the Good News of Jesus Christ
Preaching, teaching, and leading worship
Developing a strategy for a church plant and leading a church-planting team
Developing local and international partners for financial support and prayer support
Training team members in evangelism, discipleship, and church planting
Discipling new believers and establish discipleship relationships between church members
Pastorally caring for individuals within the church body and community
Establishing new contacts and maintaining existing community contacts
GOSPEL WORKER
Gospel Workers serve both our church and our city by being urban missionaries. In our church they can be found discipling new believers, preparing for our weekly gatherings, and meeting with members. To our city, they seek to be positive role models, faithful friends, and evangelists in the neighborhoods that they live. All Gospel Workers are support-raised funded.
These positions are open to those outside of our partnership churches. If you have the desire to labor faithfully in an inner city context, and in interest in learning how to navigate the complexities of the city while also teaching others to do the same, you might consider applying for a Gospel Worker position with Grace Harbor.
Our desired applicants are men and women who have some ministry experience within the local church, experience working with people from complicated backgrounds, and some theological training.
Additionally, there is no age limit. From older saints, to those who are younger and just starting out on their own… we would love to have you serve with us.
You can expect to be:
Sharing the about the Good News of Jesus Christ
Assisting the church with any duties associated with establishing a healthy church
Discipling new believers and establishing discipleship relationships between church members
Establishing new contacts and maintaining existing community contacts
Participating in group activities (Community Groups, Children’s Classes, Bible Studies)
Participating in ministry activities of the church (Community Activities, Outreaches)
Participating in general housekeeping and upkeep of the facilities and offices.
These roles involve working with children or vulnerable adults. All positions require a background screening and safety checks. Grace Harbor Church is committed to protecting the vulnerable.
Ministry intern
Grace Harbor has two types of Intern positions. The first is for members of our church who desire to be discipled and serve the body. This position is for men and women who have time, at least on a part-time basis, to dedicate being around our ministry, staff, and city.
The second type of Internship that we have is for those who come to Grace Harbor on a short-term basis from one of our Partner Churches. These Interns will live with one of our members for the length of their time with us, and will spend their time serving in our church by being part of our ministry, staff, and city.
Both types of Interns will learn a tremendous amount by being “taught and caught.” Direct discipleship will take place, as well as a number of different opportunities that will be afforded to interns to learn by observing and being part of the team.
Interns from partner churches can serve for up to 15 weeks or for as short as 9 weeks. We provide assistance in raising the finances needed as well as training, support, and care while in New Bedford.
You can expect to be:
Sharing the about the Good News of Jesus Christ
Caring for individuals within the church body and community
Establishing new contacts and maintaining existing community contacts
Participating in group activities (Community Groups, Children’s Classes, Bible Studies)
Participating in ministry activities of the church (Community Activities, Outreaches)
Participating in general housekeeping and upkeep of the facilities and offices.
Come be a member
“Christians plant churches.This is why the need for believers to relocate into gospel-parched areas is so great. The most important position in a church plant is not a pastor, but the members who form the church.”
The invitation is clear. You are needed here. God will use you here. So come, and live your normal life here and let God use you in surprising ways.
The biggest need any new church has is the need for faithful, mature Christians to be committed members of the church. Now that may sound overly simplistic, but it’s not. A faithful church needs faithful members. So what is the invitation here? The invitation is to come. Strengthen the church by becoming a good member of it. Geographically relocate your life for the gospel, and live your normal life by getting a job, buying a house, and raising your family with great missional intention. In many ways this role is the backbone of our ministry.
Often, Christians can sometime feel like they are just one fish among many, swimming in an overstocked pond. Maybe it seems as if there is no real apparent need for your spiritual gifts to be used, or perhaps your local church simply has all the bases covered. This is not the case in most New England churches. We have people in our own city who have never heard of Jesus as Lord. How do you meet them and get the opportunity to share the Gospel with them? Simple, you just move into their neighborhood and live among them.
How do you know if New Bedford would be the right place for you or your family? Well you don’t, which is why you need a multitude of counsel. To help you discover if this would be the right move for you, our church has developed a weekend assessment for you, and for your spouse also if you are married. You will spend an extended weekend with our church, staying with church members, having meals with other church members, experiencing a robust interview process, and exploring the city. Once you return home and have a chance to debrief, we will set up a call to discuss your time here, our team’s recommendations, and next steps. So far, this process has been very beneficial in helping people discern a call to New Bedford.
Partnerships
Consider having your church or ministry partner with Grace Harbor Church
Partnerships
There are 2 places where you could go in the United States that qualify as an “Unreached People Group.” Salt Lake City, Utah… and all 6 states of New England. What is the definition of an Unreached People Group? That the population identifies as less than 2% Christian. Practically speaking, you have a better chance of meeting a Christian in India, than you do in New England.
Additionally, because of the vast number of Ivy-League schools, global corporate headquarters, and diverse cultural pockets of people, the nations are represented in almost every city. This means that you don’t have to travel to far off places to reach nations. You can reach the nations by coming to New England.
And it’s for this reason that your church should prayerfully consider partnering together in the gospel to make an impact in New England.
One of our personal pet peeves is when people or churches misuse the word "partnership," when what they really mean is "support." In our use of the word "partnership" there is an obvious need that we have for financial support and investment. But that's not where we see partnerships stopping.
As we think about building partnerships we are doing so with a 40 year vision in mind. God has given us an enormous opportunity to work among broken people in the inner-cities of New England. What makes the soil here at the moment so fertile is a combination of several different factors:
Very few Gospel-exalting churches
Generations of apathetic and disheartened “Religious” people
Gentrification trends, and more
Six of the most post-Christian cities in the US are in New England, with New Bedford Massachusetts being number three.
These factors can be said of most all inner-cities in New England. But one of the main reasons we came to New Bedford was that it is a city of 150,000 people with very few Gospel-exalting churches in the city limits.
In addition, because of how gentrification has been playing out in New England for the past 40 years, it has forced poor-working class people to relocate time and time again. This has created what many call the New Bedford/Fall River problem. Which is that 85% of the citizens in these 2 cities are poor-working class (the average city is around 30%). We highlight all of this because there is always a unique gospel opportunity among poor-working class people. We see this in the scriptures, and historically. The poorer inner-cities of New England today are bursting with opportunity, and yet they are not currently the church planting magnets they should be.
We feel like God is calling us to play a small part in changing that. This has led us to think deeply about how we can create true partnerships. Our desire is to be a training ground to help equip other churches either serve "the least of these" in their own cities, while also giving them a heart for New Bedford and our surrounding cities. Our prayer is that by providing Vision Trips, Mission Trips, Internships, and Gospel Worker opportunities that God would relocate Christians from overstocked ponds, and bring them to New Bedford.
You don't have to go to Turkey to do missions work.
This is why we have created our Church Partnership Project, for those churches who desire to use their missions resources to establish flourishing churches in New England. By partnering with Grace Harbor, we allow these churches to come to New Bedford on Vision Trips, send Mission Teams, and apply for Internships.
Mission Teams
Come serve the people of our city on a short-term mission trip to New Bedford
Mission Teams
We only extend invitations and opportunities for Mission Teams to churches that have committed to being partnership churches. What we are trying to avoid is "Poverty-Tourism," where churches come to do a mission trip to serve the poor folk so that they can feel better about themselves. No church would ever say that, but without relationship it can feel this way on this end. Missions done this way isn’t very helpful, but can actually be damaging.
However, for churches who say "We're in it with you," and who are committed and care about reaching the lost, these can become beautiful partnerships. Again, we host everyone. We have the ability to host about 40 people in homes, and about 75 people at the church.
These trips consist of:
Serving Trips: construction/remodeling, neighborhood beautification, or rehabbing project with our local elementary school partnership
Evangelistic Trips: serving in the after school program, running a week long camp in neighborhood projects, leading our bible studies, doing one-to-one discipleship, etc...
Training Trips: These are for smaller groups who are looking to grow in learning how to serve those who are in poverty, abuse, addiction, and mental illness. This is both a teaching and learning time, getting first hand experience with those who are battling these issues in our church.
We see all of these opportunities as training ground for both men and women to potentially give their lives to church planting in hard places.
We would love to see the high school student coming year after year on a mission trip, then come serve as an intern, then come as a Gospel Worker and perhaps become a church planter or part of a church plant team. Maybe that church plant happens here in one of our target locations in need of a Gospel-exalting church, or maybe it happens in whatever city they are coming from.
Our hope is that through ministry experience in New Bedford, God would capture the hearts of His people for the unreached.
Keep in mind that these opportunities are not only for young people! Our latest Gospel Worker who just joined us in August is a single woman who is 62 years old. She wants to live the rest of her days reaching her generation in our city, sharing the gospel among older woman who are often forgotten. To see her love for the unreached of her generation is a beautiful thing.
New Bedford in the summer is a great place to spend a week or two serving the city by making disciples. Our hope and prayer is that your team will be just as blessed for coming, as we will be for having you come.