![]() Backed by a team of like-minded musicians, he searched for a musical language to express the new ministry's cross-cultural vision. While studying music at Covenant College in the late sixties, Jim began leading Sunday worship at the downtown Chattanooga ministry that would eventually become New City Fellowship. James Ward, Former Music Director at New City Fellowship in Chattanooga, has found that uniting diverse cultures in praise requires working the middle ground between musical heritages. The challenge of the cross-cultural worship leader is to search out the cultural angles that connect, the grooves that go together. Likewise, a musician's songs of praise can unite peoples who were once divided. In Christ we find the places where the pieces bind.Ī pastor's gracious words or a deacon's loving deeds, in their own way, can help to heal racial fallout. But through the Lord our different lives interlock. Our unique histories and dreams, beliefs and biases, images and idioms, often seem at odds. Yet we recognize the difficulty of cross-cultural ministry. Like the New City congregations that support us, we are passionate about the Biblical view of racial reconciliation through Christ. This site hopes to further extend this movement, offering music, video, instruction, and reflection for those who want to take part in the vision of cross cultural worship. Many musicians leading this worship have been trained at New City Fellowship. In cities around the world, believers are joining hands across cultural barriers and lifting their voices together in praise of their Savior. But even now we see vivid glimpses of it in our local congregations. When Jesus returns we will finally see this city perfected, the way it was meant to be. As iron sharpens iron, in true Christian fellowship Christians sharpen one another’s faith and stir one another to exercise that faith in love and good works, all to God’s glory.Scripture tells of a heavenly city where chosen people from every nation and tongue gather together to worship God. The importance of true Christian fellowship is that it reinforces these things in our mind and helps us to focus on Christ and His desires and goals for us. We know that we are strangers in this world, and we long for the time when we will be in our true home, heaven. Our hearts and minds are “other-worldly” because we follow Jesus Christ, who said that His kingdom is not of this world (John 18:36). We are united to one another by common beliefs, purposes, and goals. We can have friendships and relationships with unbelievers, but true Christian fellowship can only occur within the body of Christ. This relationship must be the basis of Christian fellowship. Just as the Father is in Jesus, so is Jesus in us, and we have unity with one another because of the uniqueness of that relationship (1 John 1:3). The “complete unity” He refers to is the oneness that Christians experience in true fellowship, oneness with one another, with Christ and with the Father. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me” (John 17:23). ![]() This relationship is described by Jesus in His high-priestly prayer for His followers: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: I in them and you in me. Those who believe the gospel are united in the Spirit through Christ to the Father, and that unity is the basis of fellowship. The mystery and privilege that is Christian fellowship is that it exists because God has enabled it by His grace. Christian fellowship, then, is the mutually beneficial relationship between Christians, who can’t have the identical relationship with those outside the faith. The Greek words translated “fellowship” in the New Testament mean essentially a partnership to the mutual benefit of those involved. In order to understand the importance of Christian fellowship, we must first understand what Christian fellowship is and what it isn’t. ![]()
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