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Welcome to COMMUNITY
We all have to start somewhere. Maybe you've been putting it off or maybe life just got busy. But no matter where you are on your spritiual journey, we want to help you find your way back to God. Come and experience church like you've never experienced it before.
Stories of Life Change
We love helping people find their way back to God. And there's nothing more exciting than hearing a story of someone whose life has changed as a result. Here are some of our favorite stories.
What We Believe
It's important that we're on the same page, so here you can find out what we believe as a church about all kinds of things:
Choose a Belief Statement...God
We believe there is one divine being who has existed eternally. He exists and reveals Himself to man in three distinct, equally divine persons - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. While we cannot fully comprehend His divine nature, it is possible for people to know Him. At the beginning of time, God created the entire universe and all its creatures. He continues to exercise His supreme power to sustain His creation. Throughout history He has expressed His desire to be our God and to have a personal, eternal relationship with us. We believe that God loves us and wants what is best for us.
Jesus
We believe that Jesus is the eternal divine Son of God. He chose voluntarily to be made in human likeness and was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin. Although He lived a sinless life He allowed Himself to be executed by crucifixion. His death paid the penalty for the offenses of mankind against God. However, as prophesied, He rose from the dead three days after His execution. After appearing to witnesses on a number of occasions for forty days, He ascended into heaven where He now serves as the Mediator between God and man. We believe that at the end of time He will again visibly return to earth to complete His eternal plan.
The Holy Spirit
The third person of God is the Holy Spirit. We believe the Holy Spirit dwells in every Christ follower. His indwelling presence gives spiritual life to believers and distinguishes them as children of God. The Holy Spirit guides Christ followers in understanding and applying God's principles and values. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, Christ followers are empowered to live Christ-like lives. The Holy Spirit also equips Christ followers with talents and abilities for the purpose of building up God's kingdom.
Man
God created mankind to live in relationship with Him. However, the first man and woman were deceived by Satan. They rebelled and chose to be wrongfully independent from God. Their decision alienated them from God. Every human being since that time has suffered the consequences of that rebellion. We all fail to please God and are open to Satan's deception. Our failure to please God, unless a relationship is re-established with Him, results in condemnation under God's judgment and would cause us to spend eternity in hell. Furthermore, there is nothing we can do on our own to re-establish our relationship with God.
The Bible
God divinely inspired human authors to write the sixty-six books of the Bible. He communicated through these writers the values, principles, and ideals which please Him and are in our best interests. We believe the Bible is entirely accurate, complete, and reliable. We look to the Bible for the revelation of the character of God and the final authority on all matters of faith and conduct.
A Relationship with God
Our inability to re-establish our relationship with God leaves us dependent on God's mercy. God graciously provided the means to reconcile this relationship through faith in Jesus Christ. Our relationship is re-established when we make a commitment to accept Jesus as God's son and our Savior and Lord. Through faith in Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven, and we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and eternal life. Practically speaking, this acceptance is demonstrated through both a private and public commitment. We demonstrate our commitment privately by faith (acting upon our belief that God has the power to save us) and repentance (turning back to God and depending on Him to control our lives). At the same time, we publicly express our commitment by confessing our acceptance of God's salvation and submitting ourselves in Christian baptism.
The Christian Life
Once our relationship is re-established with God, we naturally want to spend time with Him and know Him better. The Holy Spirit enlightens us as we read God's Word, the Bible, as we communicate with Him in prayer, and as we enter into loving relationships, Biblical community, with other Christ followers. In this way we begin to know God more intimately. As we become acquainted with God we desire to be like Him and please Him. This process of spiritual development motivates us to seek ways to serve God and prepares us to spend eternity in fellowship with Him.
The Church
We believe the church represents Jesus Christ to a needy world. The Bible speaks of the church as Christ's body. It compares it to a living organism, where Jesus is the head. God arranges the parts of the body, Christ followers, just as He wants them to be. He gives each Christ follower special functions to perform for the good of the body. To remain healthy, the body's members must work together. Each part contributes to the growth and maturity of the body. God works through the church to reconcile a lost world to Himself through Jesus Christ. For this reason it is important for Christ followers to regularly gather together for the purpose of celebration. During celebration, Christ followers are equipped, built up, and encouraged through teaching, fellowship, prayer, and communion. Celebration in this way enables believers to serve one another and the un-churched people in their sphere of influence.
The 3Cs
Here at Community, we believe Celebrating, Connecting, and Contributing are three key experiences that help us grow in our relationship with Jesus.
Celebrate: Our Relationship with God
Celebrating both in community and individually what God is doing in our lives and in our church. The focus of this C is growing our relationship with Jesus.
Connect: Our Relationship with the Church
Connecting with other Christ-followers to grow spiritually, build friendships, and experience genuine community. The focus of this C is growing our relationship with others in the Church.
Contribute: Our Relationship with the World
Our Relationship with the World: Contributing our talents, time, passions, and resources to further Jesus' mission in this world. The focus of this C is growing our relationship with those in our community and world who need to find their way back to God.
The Big Idea
Every week at COMMUNITY, we talk about one Big Idea: one biblical truth reinforced through teaching, music, theatre, video - whatever it takes to get that laser-focused theme into the heads and lives of our attenders. Students and kids learn the same Big Idea in a way that is appropriate for their age.
You see, Jesus did not confuse people with a lot of little ideas. When Jesus met someone for the first time, he challenged them with one Big Idea: "Follow me." A Big Idea that was simple but not easy. We try to challenge people in the same way. Every week, we give all people of every age and at every location one Big Idea and ask them to put it into action. The challenge is simple and clear - but never easy. That's the Big Idea.
The Big Idea gets played out throughout the week as parents and kids, students, and small groups discuss and live out the principles they learned that weekend. It's not just a weekend thing, it's an opportunity to grow in your spiritual journey with your entire family.
Helping people find their way back to God.
Recent Videos:
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Alien (2013-05-17)
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The Herd (2013-05-10)
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The Rider (2013-05-02)
June 1st All Church Leadership Community- Cubs and Sox Tickets will be awarded!
Mark your calendars for Saturday June 1st, 9AM-11AM at the Naperville Yellow Box!
You will not want to miss this All Church Leadership Community. It's going to be fun and sure to be very memorable!
We will be awarding two sets of tickets to 2 lucky leaders:
1 Cub Fan will receive a a pair of tickets to the Cubs/Brewers game on July 30th
1 Sox Fan will receive a pair of tickets to the Sox/Twins game on August 9th
What better way to kick-off the summer than with a little cross-town rivalry, baseball style - Sox vs Cubs. Come and find out which team has the biggest fan base at COMMUNITY?
Lead Pastor, Dave Ferguson, will share with us ways we can continue to B.L.E.S.S. our communities during the summer months.
Leadership Com
Alien
When we make the decision to surrender our life to Jesus, we gain a whole new identity as a Christ Follower. If we are not aware or our new identity, or we don’t embrace our new identity, we can get side tracked or distracted and in essence have our new identity “stolen” from us.
(Series: Identity Theft, Length: 22:42)
Community 5K: June 29th in Settler's Park
Have you signed up for the Community 5K yet? http://www.community5k.org We're looking for runners, joggers, walkers, and volunteers. All profits to to support New Thing. For more info please contact Kelly Chapman at newthing5k@gmail.com.
New Series Begins at COMMUNITY - Identity Theft
Join us at a COMMUNITY location this weekend as we take a look at our Identities as Christ-followers in a new five-week series called Identity Theft. When you become a Christ-follower, whether you realized it or not, your identity changed. Its when you don't embrace or forget your identity in Christ that your true Identity is being stolen from you. Christ has a life for you that He wants you to embrace and over the next five weeks, we will use the story of Joseph in the Bible and examples from his life to show how he embraced his identity. We will look at five key areas: Alien, Servant, Missionary, Overcomer and our Spiritual Family, and at the end of this series, we will all have a clearer understandin Read More…
Helping People Find Their Way Back to God
By Dave Ferguson
Every once in a while there is a moment of complete clarity that reminds me of exactly why COMMUNITY is so passionate about starting new campuses and churches to help people find their way back to God. Last week I was speaking at our Naperville Yellow Box Campus and as a part of the Switch series, the campus had “switched” bands and some artists and staff with our East Aurora Campus. Before I got up to speak, Obe Arellano, our East Aurora campus pastor, shared his favorite story since their campus launch three years ago. The story is the story of Obe’s dad, Mayolo Arellano finding his way back to God:
As I watched this remarkable story of life change it hit me one more time Read More…
