Our Values
Our Neighbors
We are committed to loving all our neighbors as Jesus commanded, including the sick, strangers, prisoners, anyone without food, clothing or a place to live, and those who don’t look like us.
Curiosity
We want to hear peoples’ stories. We ask questions and listen carefully before making any suggestions or proposing any ideas.
Mutual Relationships
We are committed to relationships based on mutuality, as opposed to need. We set aside our privilege and power before showing up. Our role is learner, connector, and catalyst—never “fixer.”
Collaboration
We trust the community to know what is best for their situation and commit to partnering with them to find the most creative solution.
Are you interested in exploring how God is at work in our neighborhoods and inviting us to participate? We gather monthly on Wednesdays in the fall and winter/spring from 6-8 pm in the Fireside Room for dinner and ongoing conversation about how we might join in God’s restorative work happening in and around us.
Please join our community group to stay informed about our gatherings and other news.
Photo: Christine Taylor
Local Engagement
We place a high value on community at NCC, and want to reflect that as much as possible within Community Engagement—encouraging our neighbors, in community, together. Consider joining one of our Neighbor Connect groups that meets alongside a nonprofit partner, with the shared goals of loving our neighbors, listening with curiosity, and forming friendships. Or we sometimes have short term small groups that form to learn more about a specific topic.
Photo: Judy Adams
“The embodied movement of pilgrimage is an opportunity to step outside our habitual rhythms with God… a rejection of modernity’s expectations and assumptions about time, place, perception, satisfaction, speed, predictability, and the material world. The Spirit yearns to break out and to break open our old practices, our protective shells of comfortable spirituality, connecting our inner selves more deeply to God’s love and to God’s world.”
Global Engagement
These trips offer a unique opportunity to intentionally dislocate ourselves from our usual routines and open ourselves up to encountering God’s presence in places and cultures other than our own. Additionally, they include a cohort experience that involves pre-trip learning and post-trip reflection.
The posture we hope to adopt is one of pilgrimage—of learning, humility, and openness. We are grounded in the belief that the individuals and communities we have the privilege of meeting and forming relationships with have much to teach us about the goodness and beauty of Christ, and the vast, diverse world God created and so deeply loves.
Where We Give
NCC aims to give 10% or more of our annual income to support nonprofit organizations aligned with our ministry. We achieve this yearly objective via special Christmas and Easter offerings, as well as through general unrestricted giving. We choose organizations that embody these words of Jesus in their work and, as much as possible, those with a connection NCC through members of our congregation. Here are some highlights about a few of the organizations we support.
“For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me. Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
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Hands of Hope
Hands of Hope cares for children at risk in Zimbabwe, providing homes through a network of churches in Harare, and transformation centers with wholistic services.
NCC congregation member Christine Taylor grew up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), and has taken six teams in recent years to participate in Hands of Hope week-long summer vacation Bible camps, helping with skits, Bible teaching, crafts, singing, games and puppet shows. The camps focus on building relationships, having fun, and introducing kids to Jesus and the Gospel. Learn more.
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Ethiopia ACT
ACT started in 2002 as an HIV/AIDS project, caring for families in and around Addis Ababa. They now also respond to other public health problems and diseases, such as tuberculosis and cervical cancer. ACT partners with local community health centers in order to help strengthen the overall public health system in Ethiopia.
NCC congregation members Hardwin Mead and George Savage have led and participated in annual medical trips for 14 and 11 years respectively, serving alongside ACT and local community healthcare providers. Learn more.
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Espacio Migrante
Espacio Migrante provides shelter for families, facilitates a community center for all migrants in the area, and partners with churches and other agencies in Tijuana to help those who are in the process of applying for refugee or asylum status in the US. This process can be lengthy, and families need shelter, food, education, translation services and advocacy while they wait for processing.
Our NCC Borderlands team visited Espacio Migrante on their pilgrimage with Journey Home to the US/Mexico border. Learn more.
