The Story a Mountainside Church Campaign for 2015

The Story – A Mountainside Church Campaign for 2015

This last summer our Administrative Council gave approval to the implementation of The Story Church Campaign for our church. Most of you are wondering what is this about? Please give me a few minutes to explain, as I believe this is an outstanding opportunity for spiritual growth and outreach at Mountainside beginning in 2015.

First let me explain a little about The Story and then I’ll describe a few aspects of this program and its benefit for the Mountainside family. The Story is an abridged chronological Bible that reads like a novel. There are no verse references, and Scripture segments are seamlessly woven together with transition text into a single grand narrative. For those intimidated or overwhelmed by the unabridged Bible, The Story helps people understand God’s Word more fully and engage with it more easily. Simple, accessible, and easy to use, many churches are finding The Story a powerful way to engage their people in Bible reading like never before.

The next question is what is “The Story Church Campaign?” The campaign is a collection of resources based on The Story and the implementation of those resources through our Mountainside family and discipleship ministries. The Story Church Campaign is designed for an entire church body to experience together. The Story engages and involves every age group simultaneously. For example on the first Sunday we begin this program on January 4, the sermon, the Children’s Church and Children’s Sunday School will all focused on the same theme of the first chapter in The Story. These classes will be using the classroom curriculum designed for every age-related ministry.

We will also have Adult Classes on Sunday morning using the teaching/discussion material related to the reading for that week. We will have Home Groups and other classes that will be offering discussions on the same material throughout each week. We are encouraging every youth and adult family member of Mountainside to order their own copy of The Story (sold at discounted rates through Mountainside UMC). Hopefully our whole church will grow in at least two dimensions: depth and width. The depth is a result of the greater unity from the corporate understanding of how the Bible fits together. The width comes from spreading the reach of The Story to all the age-related ministries in the church, and beyond.

More information will be made available in the weeks to come but for now if you would like to sign up or would like to know more about the story you can call the church office at 281-5117.