City Church Pamphlet

Our denominational affiliation is with the Presbyterian Church in America, a denomination with a strong commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Oversight will be provided by a provisional session (advisory team) consisting of elders from the Heritage Presbytery. Jason will be coached by a seasoned church planting coach who is a teaching elder in the Philadelphia Presbytery. Our strategic partners include the Acts 29 Network, the liberti church movement, and the Mosaix Global Network. Acts 29 exists to start churches that plant churches. Mosaix is a network committed to inspiring unity and diversity through the development of Christ-centered churches. Liberti is a multiplying church movement in the city of Philadelphia.

Prayer For all our strategizing and preparation, City Church cannot succeed without the Spirit of God driving the mission. Your prayers are vital to this work. We are seeking prayer partners who will commit to a season of prayer for this project. Despite our brokenness and weakness, we believe God will use His people as we depend on Him daily for all of our needs.

Giving You can sponsor this church plant financially. Our budget for three years is approximately $415,000. In addition to church expenses, this covers compensation for the full-time church planter, a part-time music director, and a part-time administrator. Your support can be in any amount. We prefer 3-year pledge commitments but are also seeking one-time gifts. All funds are being raised under the Heritage Presbytery during this phase of the project. A more detailed financial document is available upon request. Checks should be made payable to Heritage Presbytery. PLEASE MEMO EVERY GIFT: ―City Church.‖ Your tax deductible contributions may be sent to: Heritage Presbytery Treasurer 2312 Lighthouse Lane Wilmington, DE 19810 Please email [email protected] if you are interested in partnering with us.

Wilmington has a diverse population of approximately 73,000. As Delaware’s largest city, Wilmington serves as the business and cultural hub of the region. Riverfront development and other downtown projects have created a buzz for a city seeking to reinvent itself. New businesses, coffee shops, and restaurants are emerging. Designers, architects, retailers, and artists are being attracted to the city with the hope of redefining it. The future looks promising. In fact, Wilmington was recently named one of the top five North American micro-cities of the future by Foreign Direct Investment Magazine. The story of a city bursting with hope, however, is not the whole story. For many, the future does not look so promising. Like every urban center, Wilmington is a tale of two cities; it is a small city with big city problems. Greed, poverty, sexual brokenness, crime, racism, lack of education and other injustices have vandalized God’s intentions of peace and wholeness for the city. With our words and our lives, City Church will tell God’s story—the story of Jesus coming to rescue us from sin and renew our broken world. We want to humbly join the conversation about our city’s future, commending this story as the ultimate resource for urban renewal. As participants in God’s story, our mission is to unite the diversity of the city in the gospel, and through the gospel, to seek the good of the city for the glory of God. We dream of a gospel-driven movement where: (1) The unchurched and dechurched are exposed to the gospel in authentic community; (2) People from diverse backgrounds are united under a new identity in Jesus; and (3) Followers of Jesus participate in the restoration of creation where they live, work, and play.

Jason Sica was born in Wilmington and his first exposure to urban ministry came there as a high school student. Jason holds a Master of Divinity from Covenant Theological Seminary, with a concentration in urban ministry and contemporary culture. As a seminary student, he worked as the Youth Director at Grace and Peace Fellowship in urban Saint Louis. After graduating, he returned home where he served for a summer as a pastoral intern with All Nations Fellowship, a multiethnic church plant. He now serves as Assistant Pastor at Faith Presbyterian Church in North Wilmington, where he has been on staff for four years. Jason and his wife Katie have been married for seven years; they have two young girls, Kylie (age 4 ½) and Naomi (age 3). The Sicas have been captured by the diversity, vibrancy, and need of Wilmington’s urban landscape. Jason and Katie have been approved for church planting by the Acts 29 Network. In addition to going through the Acts 29 boot camp and assessment, they have also participated in Global Church Advancement’s church planting training.

City Church will be a congregation not simply for ourselves, but for our friends and neighbors who do not yet know Christ. While we desire to see the gospel unite the diversity of the city, our hearts are especially burdened for those who are disconnected from Jesus and the life of His church. A post-Christian climate is emerging in Wilmington. Although there are many churches dotting the city’s landscape, few are evangelical and missional. A growing number of congregations are closing their doors each year due to an inability to bring in new members. Many people today are disinclined toward the church. Some have never ventured into the doors of a church, confident that Christianity has nothing relevant to say to their lives. Others have been exposed to church, but want nothing further to do with it because of the hypocrisy, religiosity, and coldness they encountered. We desire to start a congregation that is accessible to these kinds of people – the unchurched and dechurched. We want the skeptical, the burned-out, and the broken to experience the welcome of Jesus in gospel-centered community.

Our strategy is based on an incarnational approach to ministry. The church is not a building we go to, but a people who go. Our efforts will be concentrated on equipping people to take the gospel into their neighborhoods and spheres of influence. God is calling us to put down roots in order to serve the city of Wilmington. This incarnational strategy is fleshed out below in our 7 C’s: 1. Contextual Worship – eclectic worship that unites the diversity of our city around the worship of God 2. Congregational Renewal – gospel renewal in our lives and church community spills over into our city 3. Community Groups – safe places for believers and unbelievers to journey in the hope of Christ together 4. Cultural Engagement – the gospel speaks to every area of life and is the power of God to transform culture 5. Community Development – God’s grace motivates us to contribute to the overall good of the city 6. Campus Ministry – reaching out to college students and including them in our community is a priority 7. Church Planting – God is always moving His people forward, taking the gospel into new places