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A New Type of Church

Narrow Road Communities is a small church located in central Pennsylvania. NRC, as the members call it, is not a typical church, they have the goal to redefine what “Church” means. According to NRC, a church is any gathering of two or more Christians, as per Matthew 18:20. NRC holds a weekly gathering that is structured like a typical church service, meaning a worship service followed by preaching. But, even during this service NRC is doing something different. The service begins “around 10”, starting with a buffet-style breakfast every week to encourage as much community interaction as possible. Then, the contemporary worship begins in a laid-back fashion that allows people to still enjoy community or begin worshiping. Next, the sermon begin in which the pastor, Mike Jarrell, shares examples of Jesus with the congregation in hopes to encourage them to live their lives most like Jesus. Whether Mike’s describing who the congregation should be interacting with or explaining Jesus’ righteous anger in the temple, the message is still the same. As Christians, we should be living an outrageous life to further God’s kingdom. The main focus of NRC is not Sunday gathering, though, it’s the Missional Action Groups that are dispersed all across the central Pennsylvania area. These groups are members of the church who are outrageously reaching out to people, Christian or non-Christian, and showing them Christ’s love. These groups go out throughout the week and meet at both the Sunday gathering and their Missional Action Group meeting to get refilled so they can go out again and begin pouring out to others again. Narrow Road Communities is a church that is defying the definition of church and trying to return to Jesus and the apostles’ examples.

Jael Compton

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  • This is a pretty cool approach to doing church. It seems like a church that churchless people would be more inclined to check out with the more natural flow of things.

  • I honestly have never heard anything like this before. I have heard about doing a service like this on a rare occasion but not consistently. I'm sure in cities, this would be a very popular way to reach a multitude of young adults.

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Jael Compton

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