Chantilly, Virginia
The short version is we were started in 1993 to reach people who didn’t go to church. Starting with just a handful of people, New Life grew by serving the community with free, fun family events like Fall Fun Fests and Easter Eggstravagansas. While the specifics of how we serve the community have changed in many ways, almost everything we’ve done has been to help people who don’t yet know Jesus come to know Him and accept Him as the leader of their life. Whether through church planting, being multi-site, or by building a facility (The nZone) designed for the community from the ground up, everything we do creates safe places where people discover God daily. Our passion is making disciples who make disciple makers starting churches that start churches.
That’s a great question… and this is an important milestone in the history of New Life. nZone started when we bought a beer distribution warehouse. Yea… kinda odd for a church. But then we did something crazy. We dumped millions of dollars into it and converted that cold, cinderblock warehouse into an 83,000 sq ft indoor sports, fitness, and community complex. We put in three turf fields, two basketball courts, a fitness center, and a cafe. Sure, sports and church sound like an odd combination, but we think it’s great. After all, when Dr. James Naismith first nailed a peach basket to the wall in 1891 and called it basketball, it didn’t surprise God one bit.
We sacrificed our own needs (an auditorium with comfy seats) and built what a community survey told us the community needed: a safe place for our kids to hang out. A place to play after school, a place to build friendships, and a place to learn some good old-fashioned values. Besides… sports are fun. Lots of churches do serious well (and that’s a good thing), but at New Life Christian Church we also do fun well and believe that God appreciates fun and games as much as we do. We hope that when life happens and people have questions about God, they’ll come to a service at The nZone because they’ll already feel at home.