CHURCH PROFILE

We are a small church settled in the hills of southeast New Hampshire. The church was founded in 1974 by a small group of 17 Christians meeting to worship and work together with the Lord. Designed to be a replica of the early churches of New England, the sanctuary can seat 100 people. The rest of the building is dedicated to Christian education and fellowship.

Nottingham is a bedroom community nestled in between the seacoast and the beautiful mountains of New Hampshire with access to surrounding lakes, such as the one in Pawtuckaway State Park or in the nearby town of Northwood. We are within an hour and a half of Boston. We are located within 30 miles of cities such as Portsmouth, Concord, Manchester, Exeter and Dover, as well as the states of Maine and Massachusetts. Our community of approximately 4000 members has a broad spectrum of vocations and professions. We have an elementary school that educates children from kindergarten through grade eight. While we do not have a high school in town, there is a choice of schools in surrounding communities. Our elementary school is supported by the community with a large number of volunteers, as is our town youth sports association. We recently received an endowment from Liberty Mutual for youth sports in recognition of good sportsmanlike coaching from volunteers. Our library is also active in the community, offering book clubs, story hour, chess club and other family-focused programs. Our taxes are low in comparison to similar towns in the area, and we have high community involvement in town, both socially and politically. Rural, friendly and family-oriented, Nottingham has a lot to offer a pastor and his family. (See also, www.nottingham-nh.gov , www.nh.gov , and www.nottinghamchurch.org )

We are proud to be members of the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference and believe the highest authority is God. We are spiritually led by a Board of Elders and our physical plant is overseen by a Board of Trustees. It is the body of believers who govern our church, a tradition given us by our New England Forefathers.

Our worship service is a place where the Bible is always preached, the Lord is always praised, and we set aside that time to give honor and glory to Him. We sing hymns and choruses of praise and offer prayers together in traditional worship format.

OUR STRENGTHS

Our small church in a country setting is blessed with a strong, loving, church family. We have many gifted leaders and our congregation is actively involved in the worship, taking part in scripture reading and the offering of individual prayer. Music is integrally important to our worship service, and we are very fortunate to have a very involved and talented congregation to praise the Lord in song. Our sanctuary is furnished with pew Bibles (NIV) and copies of the Celebration Hymnal. The life of the Church continues to grow through the cooperation of church members working together to glorify Jesus Christ.

We place great emphasis on the youth of our congregation and of our community; offering weekly Sunday school services and a well-attended, one-week Vacation Bible School during the summer. Two emerging youth ministries, designed as an outreach to children of the community, have also proven to be very well received. We enjoy the blessing that God continues to bestow on our young people.

Our relationships with our pastors have always been positive experiences. The past decade (which was a time of adding younger families and developing more family-oriented worship experiences) was shared with a joyous, Biblically-strong pastor whose unassuming friendly personality drew in people from many different backgrounds. In that decade we took advantage of many opportunities to stretch, grow and discover our individual gifts.

OUR NEEDS

We need to grow individually, numerically, and in our ability to reach out to others in the name of Jesus. Our individual growth needs can be met with leadership training, mentoring of new Christians, providing more occasions for social connectedness and outreach to the community as well as other churches in the area. We need to grow as a church by adding to our numbers so that we can further develop the seeds of programs already begun. We would like to be more progressive for people in their late teens and 20’s, as well as the older people of our community.

Physical limitations exist as our building is currently being used to capacity. As we continue to grow, the potential to offer two services exists, possibly with different worship styles. This would resolve the crowded Sunday morning dilemma while we continue to seek the Lord’s guidance for the expansion of our facility.

With our small numbers, we find it difficult to follow-up with visitors or adequately reach out to those at home with illness or disability. We pray to the Lord of the harvest to send workers into His field.

THE INITIAL THREE YEARS

To accomplish our vision of a fully-functioning church, we would ask that our new pastor strengthen us with leadership training, that he encourage us in ways of reaching out to people in our community and to other churches in our area. At the same time, we will strive to hold on to those strengths we already have.

We seek a pastor who will actively involve us in attracting new believers, non-believers, and transfer Christians to come worship and serve here in this local body of Christ.

We desire a pastor who is Biblically-based, affable and a dynamic preacher. We would like someone who is equally at ease delivering the message from the pulpit as he is with personal conversations and counsel. Especially needed is a dynamic personality who is able to engage both believers and non-believers ages 4-94.

Congregational preferences indicate that a pastor with a family, or a strong sense of family, is essential. We seek someone who has proven through their work and seminary training that he can integrate all ages in the life, spirit and leadership of the church. The pastor will ideally have a family that supports all aspects of church life and also attends weekly to share in fellowship with our members.

The congregation is also asking for a pastor to be active in the town and willing to jump into the role of public relations to grow and sustain our standing in the town.

A bi-vocational position, ¾ time, is our current offer, with the opportunity to build this congregation and lead the members in a long-range plan for stewardship that will sustain the church into the next decade.

In summary, we are looking for someone who can help us continue to grow in Christ as we attract more believers with variant backgrounds and worship styles. We are looking for someone who is dedicated to the importance of family, believes in the value of Christian Education for people of all ages and shares a commitment to home and foreign missions.

We want our pastor to be a part of us in faith and fellowship as we continue to walk with our Savior. Most of all, we want to welcome a pastor to our family.