It is our mission to turn seeking people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. We want to help people experience life . . . different. We also feel its our role to be an innovator of creativity in ministry. We want to inspire and share life through worship services. Therefore, we integrate various creative arts in the worship setting so it is more than a service. It’s an experience—an encounter with the living God who brings new life by giving us a New Song to sing in a world that’s sick and tired of the old song! So expect to experience music, video, spoken word, art, scents, fog, lights, interaction, live drama, etc. Our services are thematically driven (the whole service is the message), often humorous (we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we take the Gospel very seriously) and anything but boring (it’s okay for church to be relevant and sometimes even fun!). Services are geared to the times and anchored to the Rock. They challenge Christian and seeker alike to embrace God’s grace, which brings about real and lasting life change.

 

We are constantly looking at how we can help people connect to each other. With an eye towards keeping things simple, we strive to have all of our programs and events focused on our key growth steps (or connections): C¹ – Connecting to God, C² – Connecting to Others, and C³ – Connecting to the World. We understand that growth is more relational than informational. Information never changed a person’s life. But encounters do. So these vital connections have at their center the establishment of relationships. By developing meaningful relationships, people find that at New Song, God IS real, relevant and reaching.

 

We intentionally go into our community wherever the Church is usually not. If churches usually do it, we don’t. If they usually don’t, we do. So, you’ll find us on the streets doing random acts of kindness, at local festivals, at the city parks, on secular radio stations, T.V. stations and print media, in the Gulf Coast post-hurricane, at the Operation Christmas Child distribution center, knee deep in the rocky Honduras soil building a Habitat for Humanity house, serving meals at Religious Community Services, stacking cans of food in the pantry at the Salvation Army, etc. God loves people like crazy and so do we, therefore we take the risks that others aren’t taking that we might reach some and help them sing a New Song.

  

 

In June 1998, Jeff Severt was appointed by the NC United Methodist Church to begin a new church in New Bern that would target the Highway 70 East area as its location, but target a 30-mile radius for its reach. This church would attract seekers from great distances because of its uniqueness. It would understand and reach those disconnected from God and the church with an innovative and contemporary approach to ministry. From July through October 1998 a core group of about 20 began meeting in Jeff’s living room to dream some dreams about what this church could become. Our mission: To turn seeking people into fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ.

 

The core group prayed, planned and prepared for a massive outreach campaign and our launch in the fall. New Song officially began on November 1, 1998, meeting at the Twin Rivers YMCA with 260 people present the first Sunday. We retained about 200 and have grown from there. In 2002, we moved into our first facility on 23+ acres of land that we acquired in 1999.

 

God makes life . . . different. Better. Real. So from the beginning we have attempted to make the Gospel of Jesus Christ relevant to today’s culture and by some of the most unique and risk-taking efforts of reaching out, we have consistently seen scores of persons come to Christ each year (80% of our membership has joined by way of a salvation experience). Along the way, we have learned that where God guides, God provides. We’ve learned that we are better together. We’ve learned it’s about relationship, not religion. We’ve learned to live life to a new tune because God has put a “new song” in our heart (Psalm 40:3).

 

With a current staff of 12 and 500-600 in worship each week, New Song is still becoming the church God created us to be as we reach persons from all walks of life. People just like you, because our ministry has always been and continues to be real, relevant and reaching. That’s the New Song we’re singing!

  

We know our mission doesn’t end until all have been reached with the most dangerous and awesome news the world has ever known. That only happens if we continue to communicate the never-changing Good News of Jesus Christ to an ever-changing world. Though we started in 1998, we cannot be 1998-Song or 2002-Song or even 2009-Song. We are NEW Song. God is always doing a new thing, so we are always looking to proclaim it. Change is the only constant, and we know we are always being changed by God. We want to always experience life. . . different.

 

To that end, we believe God has given us the land we possess to be a hub for the global expansion of the Gospel. We are attempting great things for God and expecting great things from God. We are excited about our new family ministries that are geared to reach more of our young military and civilian neighbors with children as Cherry Point Air Station builds up over the next several years. We are also excited about the possibility of expanding our reach with multi-site ministry, which even includes a virtual campus online.

 

We don’t know exactly where God will take us, but we do know this: through Jesus, God has given each of us a New Song to sing so life can really be . . . different. Yea, God!