I mentioned the letter we sent out in the last post and thought it might be good to reproduce it here.
Greetings, Neighbor!
A new church has just started meeting in the Clifton Heights neighborhood, and we would like to introduce ourselves to you. Although this church is new, it meets in the same building as an old church. Clifton Heights Baptist Church no longer exists and our new church, Christ Community Church of Louisville, now meets where they used to be. If you’ve driven by our building on Cleveland Boulevard, you may have noticed that things look different. We’ve painted the brick and blocks of our building, changed the landscaping, and put up a new sign. Those are the changes you can see. The changes you cannot see are all inside the building. We’ve remodeled and updated much of the building’s interior with a new, safer nursery; a new children’s area; a more open fellowship hall in our basement, among other things.
But even these renovations do not tell you what is really new about our church. Christ Community Church is committed to a single mission: helping our neighbors have a real relationship with Jesus Christ. And Christ Community Church is committed to a single message: the gospel of salvation through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
This is our mission and our message because we have come to know Jesus Christ ourselves and through him have been forgiven of our sins, have been set free from many troubling habits, and have had our lives transformed by this relationship. We have experienced all this and want to share Jesus with you. We know that your life can be transformed by him, too.
When you visit our church, you will not find a bunch of programs; you will not find a weekly schedule that keeps you running around the church every night of the week; you will not find skits and videos popping up in our service; and you will not find a group of self-righteous people who look down their noses at you. But you will find people who know Jesus and want to introduce him to you; you will hear a message from God’s Word, the Bible, that will show you Jesus and teach you to walk with him; and you will find friends who want to help you overcome habits, addictions, and behaviors that are hurting you.
You’ll find in this envelope an invitation to a neighborhood open house at Christ Community Church. On September 10th, from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m., you are welcome to come and visit us, see our building, and meet some of our members. If you are interested in our mission and message, people will be there who can tell you more about it. If you are just curious about the changes we have made to the building, then we will be happy to show you around.
Finally, we are your neighbors and we want to be a helpful part of this neighborhood. We have two events coming up that we hope will be of interest to you. First is something we call Total Tutoring. Starting on October 5th, we will open up our building on Wednesday afternoons at 4:30 p.m. for elementary through high school students to get help with their homework. We call it Total Tutoring because we will serve your children’s minds through tutoring, their bodies with a meal, and their spirits through our Wednesday evening children’s service (called Kingdom Kids) and our youth group. If you would like your child to participate, please email me at pastorsteve@ccclouisville.org and I will send you a registration and permission form that your child will need to join us.
Our second event is a class I will be teaching on Friday evenings in October on personal financial management. Before becoming a pastor, I practiced law for 15 years, specializing in estate planning, taxes, and other financial issues. I would like to share with you some helpful and practical things I have learned through my own experiences to help you better handle your own money in these difficult times. If you are interested in attending these sessions, call the church or email me and I will give you more information about dates and times.
Thank you for reading this letter. We are praying for you and hope to meet you soon.
Steve Matteucci
Pastor