About

Harvest Church is a Congregation of local believers in Jesus Christ meeting in the Moultonborough / Sandwich / Center Harbor area.

Our Mission is:   To love God, love others, and go into all the world with the best news ever!

Our Vision is to be a family of missionary servants, bringing the message God's Love to our community and all the earth, through word and deed.  

We meet at 10:00 Sunday mornings in a rented space at 80 Bean rd, in Moultonborough. The large auditorium can seat over 600 people, so there is plenty of room for our small congregation. 

We are a group of Christians from the area that share the belief that God loves it when people reach out in love to their neighbors and their community and also across the world. We love to worship God and to share our love for Him with anyone who's interested. 

Our music style is joyful and contemporary- meaning we use modern songs, instruments and styles to express our praise and thankfulness to God.  Guitars, keyboards, and drums etc...

Our teaching is down to earth but from the Bible, which we hold to be the very words of God to humanity.  

As for how we dress- we're casual. Jeans are the norm- but wear what you're comfortable with.  

Kids are welcomed- and we have trained Nursery and Sunday school teachers that minister to the kids during the sermon, or you are welcome to keep your kids in the service with you as well. 

We believe that God has called us to be part of our community and also to reach out in love to all of the world.

If you don't have a church home, or maybe you've never gone to church- we'd love for you to come and visit and get to know us!  
 

Our Church structure is modeled after the New Testament, with a group of Pastor / Elders who serve the church in leadership.  For more information on this type of leadership, please check out this excellent resource:

http://www.tulsachristianfellowship.com/uploads/2/3/5/1/23513522/new_testament_church_leadership_in_the_local_church_2010_conclave.pdf

What we believe:
We believe that Jesus Christ is the only hope for all of mankind.  Our core beliefs are summarized in the Apostles Creed.  We recognize that the creeds, while formulated by godly men, have their limitations.  But the Bible is the God-breathed revelation of Himself given to mankind in order that we might know and obey Him.  The Bible is infallible and wholly incapable of error in its truth claims.  It is the only reliable standard for our faith and practice.  Because of this fact, it is our aim to have all of our beliefs ultimately stem from and be in agreement with the whole of the written word of God (both the Old and New Testaments).

We don't call ourselves reformed or not reformed, though we do favor the biblical teachings of Grace.  In fact we try to stay away from those kind of distinctions.  But we do take care to teach and preserve sound doctrine (1 Timothy 6:3-4; Titus 1:9, 2:1).   German Lutheran theologian of the early seventeenth century, Rupertus Meldenius, said it well: "In Essentials Unity, In Non-Essentials Liberty, In All Things Charity."    

Salvation: In John 14:6 Jesus said: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.   All human beings are made in the image of God, but the relationship with God for all humans was severed when sin entered the human race.  So every human since Adam and Eve (except for Jesus, whose Father was God) was born in a fallen condition- separated from God. In order for people to be saved- or restored to spiritual life- the debt of sin must be paid. The bible tells us in Romans 6:23  For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.  In the old testament times, a blood sacrifice was made to cover over the guilt of one's sin .  A ceremonially clean animal was killed and it's blood symbolically covered the sin of the sinner, restoring their fellowship with God.  The bible tells us that  at just the right time, while we were still powerless, the Messiah died for the ungodly.  (Romans 5:6)  
Jesus Christ, God's only son sacrificed himself- a perfect sacrifice- in order to bring about salvation for any who would come to Him on the terms He has set. The bible tells us that:  all who have received Him, to them--that is, to those who trust in His name--He has given the privilege of becoming children of God; John 1:12  

 

  Everyone who comes to Him on the terms He has set is spiritually re born- or Born again by God's amazing grace!  


    Baptism:  We practice believers' immersion and believe that water baptism is mandatory for all Christians (see Matthew 28:18-20; Acts 2:38-39; Colossians 2:11-12).  

    The Holy Spirit: We believe the gifts of the Holy Spirit are available to the church today and are to be practiced in a way the builds up the whole church.  

Pastors and leadership:
We believe God gives a team of men to serve as elders to shepherd (or pastor) the flock or church.  Since the New Testament pattern for elders is always shown to be a group of elders rather than a single man, we endeavor to emulate the pattern we see there in the Scriptures.  We believe that the elders are responsible for the care of the church family including pastoral duties and the all aspects relating to the welfare of the church.  While we acknowledge that God desires the people of the church to respect their leaders, and that leaders must lead, we shy away from the use of formal titles such as "Pastor So and So" or "Bishop So and So" or any other.   We don't see any so called distinction between laity and clergy in the Bible, so we don't practice it.  Instead we believe that every member of the church is called to serve and use their gifts to build up the body of Christ (the church) throughout the world.  Sometimes the needs of the church requires one or more elders to serve full time in the work of the ministry, in which case they may be compensated financially.  Other times, the elders may continue at their regular jobs while serving and thus may not require financial compensation.  Regardless, elders, paid or not, are not considered to be above or higher than other members of the congregation, they only have different responsibilities.  Occasionally, the elders may appoint deacons and deaconesses (servants) to fulfill certain practical duties for the church (see Acts 6:1-6; 1 Timothy 3:8-13).  

As a church plant, our church currently reflects the New Testament model of a church planted by an apostolic team, which does not yet have a full council of Elders recognized.  The church is currently led by a team including several members of the church and the founding elder, Scott Goddard who was ordained as an elder at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship in Weirs Beach and served there from 1992 through 2014 when he was released from Cornerstone to start Harvest Church of the Lakes Region.  

Though we are an independent local church, we believe it is very important for our local expression of the church to maintain relationships with other churches for accountability and mutual encouragement.  Our elders meet regularly with leaders from  churches both locally and throughout the country and we also draw on those resources regularly, benefiting mutually from the varied gifts of several trans-local ministry teams.   

Harvest Church meets at 80 Bean rd, Moultonborough, NH