Friday, July 25, 2008 Why Another Church in Helena?

One question you may have about Encounter is "Why another church in Helena?" You may have noticed that there are already a lot of churches here — it's as though there is a church on every corner - we don't seem to need another church.

THE REALITY
The reality is that while 50 percent of people in Helena claim to have any church affiliation, only 10 percent are members of an evangelical church. At best, there is at least another 50 percent that do not — they don't even attend church.

More importantly, we can see there is a massive shortfall of people who are in a growing relationship with Jesus, regardless of the number of churches in Helena. People's lives and souls are being sacrificed because many churches are desperately trying to keep and satisfy a handful of church-goers who are comfortable with these statistics. We are not comfortable with this.

THIS GENERATION
That is why we are willing to create a community that is specifically designed to reach out to those who are far from God — especially a younger generation that has been dis-enfranchised from our faith communities — especially those who have "tried" traditional church and found it lacking or irrelevant to their lives. We are specifically looking to connect with the largely un-reached or under-reached group between the ages of 25 and 44 (nearly 26 percent of Helena according to Census 2000).

EXCELLENCE
We want to create a community that values environments where the un-churched will experience something so different, unique, and life-giving that they want to come back, whether they believe the teaching or not; environments where things are done with excellence and where adults, teens, and kids encounter a creative God as a result of what we do through Christ.

INVEST & INVITE
We also want to create a community that is ready to invest their lives in others in order to invite them to these environments where that can begin a growing relationship with Jesus. This core DNA of Encounter (what we're about, our essence) speaks to the purpose for which we are created and saved - to encounter a life-giving relationship with Christ and to invite others to experience the same.

IS THIS YOU?
If this sounds like the kind of community of Christ-followers that you could be involved with — or if you want to find out more, please don't hesitate to contact us.