AWAKEN 21

Christmas Is Here

2011-12-22T08:43:00.000-08:00

I am super excited to spend Christmas with my family, however it always does my heart good to hear my kids ask the questions every year about "Giving" to others. I am thankful for their teachable and humble spirit they seem to live with so frequently. It often times makes me stop and think of how selfish this world we live in really is, and how child like faith and humility really is the closest thing to the fathers heart. Don't get me wrong....haha! My kids love presents, but they are striking a solid balance between celebrating their gifts and giving attention to what Christmas is really all about! Connection to God through the most generous gift of all...His son Jesus. I am thankful this year for a growing family, not only in number (new son Urijah arrives in January) but also a family that is growing spiritually. I can say, we certainly don't have it all figured out, but we certainly know that leaning and depending fully on HIS mercies that are new every morning has never lead us astray.

"WE ARE IN HIS GRIP"

A New Day!

2011-12-16T13:19:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe, we live in a new city, a new house, a new church and are expecting a new baby! Life is filled with a season of "NEW" for the Bever family right now; and it's almost the new year as well....NEW...NEW...NEW. However, the most important thing has remained the same; Gods divine call on our lives. To keep reaching people with HIS great love. It's a New Day, but the mission is the same...and His mercies are new every day.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Dave Bever Jr.

Ripe for Harvest! Short handed!

2011-01-31T09:26:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Monday morning and I am committed to this communication via blog and video this year! Haha! I couldn't help myself Sunday night from thinking and being overwhelmed by the scripture that describes the RIPE for harvest field and the few workers on hand for it. Let's face the facts here, PEOPLE win PEOPLE! It's not TV, radio, post cards, cool invitations, facebook pages, blogs, tweets, etc... its people in relationships that embody the Gospel in word and deed that can truly lead people towards Christ as Savior, encourager, deffender, King, healer, etc... I was gripped with the fact that I am currently leading a small church plant inside the Great Northern Mall that is visited by 17,000 people from the surrounding communities everyday. I have been saying "The field is ripe, the workers are few." You see, I am not interested in building a mega church because biblically speaking there is only ONE church and it's a MEGA one; it's worldwide! I don't want to establish another one stop, sit and sing congregation, but a community of faith that is outward focused on the great commission of Christ...preaching the gospel and making disciples. A multiplication movement in which God gets all the glory, not a pastor or marketing scheme. However, the critical mass is important. Think about it, the voice of the church in the mall is minimal to the hundreds hustling and bustling people through the mall possibly unaware of eternal things. I am challenging and calling all pastors and believers to consider, pray, and partner with us inside Great Northern Mall on Saturday nights as we worship, but also fellowship with the lost and the found. Its not about a name or building. It's the name "Jesus" that matters, not our membership, attendance, or 3-5 year plan. Its wise to plan, but our plans should never trump the prompting of the Holy Spirit! There is an urgency for the church...THE ONE CHURCH to be in unity and pressing into the world we live in together for an uplifting of Jesus to be known to all mankind. Is there a church building on every corner!? YES...but the doors are not bursting open week after week with people flooding them exactly, now is there? However, there are some churches God is pouring out into and onto for the purposes of leading the way into BIBLICAL Christianity. I am excited to know that there is a place called Elevate North that's in the middle of where people go daily - the mall, representing the ONE church of Jesus Christ. If people decide worshiping at Elevate North is for them, great! If not, then my passion as a pastor is to help them locate and plug into a biblical, missional, church in the area for the spiritual growth of them and their families. ARE YOU INTERESTED IN HELPING REACH the 17,000 some of whom live in your area possibly? Email me at davebever@gmail.com we are planning and organizing for the future of how to make an impact where it matters the most...In relationships with people for the Glory of God!

Pastor Dave Bever
Elevate North- Lead Pastor
New City- Executive Director

2011

2011-01-28T05:10:00.000-08:00

Friend, Family

I am posting this today as an announcement! (haha) This year I will be pushing harder in the evangelism focus of our ministry, that God has called us to; with this being said if you are planning a revival, spiritual renewal week or weekend, camp, retreat, seminars, etc... I have a variety of materials I plan to share and provide in various settings. You can contact me directly to discuss dates, details, etc... I believe in the "Awakening of the 21st Century" and this year believe God has given me a specific word for the existent church to prod towards this awakening, as well as intensely promote the starting of New Churches (plants) and ministry outlets that are creative to reach a generation or culture that is steeped in sin and has been exposed to a false gospel and religious world. These are the days of Elijah of sorts, preparing the way of the Lords return! 2011 lets live on the edge, lets lead with great vision, preach with Spirit power and love with Christ love everyone we come into relationship with! let the TRUTH of the gospel silence the voices of the false prophets of this generation, who will open their mouths with me and share this GREAT love of Heaven with more passion and commitment this year?

January is almost over

2011-01-23T04:45:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year friends and family, its hard to think January is almost over.....already!? However, with the first month of 2011 almost done and 11 more months to Go, I pray each of you have an ANGST for the Lord like never before! I pray that the "KINGDOM" of God is what you seek first and know that in Romans 14:16-19 God says His Kingdom is about His Righteousness, Peace and Joy... Think about that for a moment! "RIGHTeousness" when we are thinking right, doing right.....we live with PEACE and JOY! let us Hunger and Thirst for Righteousness and through the Holy Spirit, we will be empowered to LIVE in accordance with His Kingdom mandate on the earth.

New City LOCK-N 2010

2010-11-12T10:53:00.000-08:00

OH MAN!!!!! REMEMBER if your the ages of 12-18 then on NOVEMBER 19, 2010 from 10pm- 6am we are having the biggest and most intense LOCK-N just for you! I'm calling all CLEVELAND, OHIO young men and women to join us for a killer time of basketball, dodge ball, video games, FOOD, swimming, HIP-HOP, giveaways, FEAR FACTOR, dunk contest, all for $5 dollars.....You will also hear an incredible story of life! SPECIAL PRIZE for whoever brings the most friends....hahaha don't miss out Ya'll! Need a ride? be at New City at 9pm for transportation to the YMCA.....must have your permission slip signed when you arive.

FEAST & BEATS 2010

2010-11-12T10:46:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone! Thanksgiving is a time for us to EAT as a Family, so CLEVELAND, OHIO come and join us on November 21, 2010 @ 5:30pm for the FEAST and then 7:00pm for the BEATS ...haha New City band and some special guest will be leading us in some HIP-HOP and Worship and then a word By Pastor Dave Bever Jr. (AKA. REV D.) there will be a time for Basketball also before the 7:00pm Service! Tell everyone you know and lets get at IT! (also you won't want to miss the special addition of "MINUTE TO WIN IT" with Capt. Virtue....

I will Be Blogging MORE!

2010-10-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

I want you all to know, I am going to really try to Blog more! I have been encouraged by the several e-mails and calls regarding the #FUEL2010 conference in Indianapolis. I am releasing my first book, that is called "ENOUGH" Raw and Unpolished on 1.1.11 I want you to know that I have put this off until I heard a clear word from the Holy Spirit to move on it now! TRUTH is, I never want to be a self promoting preacher, author, pastor! I am a sinner saved by GRACE, and am passionate about seeing a church (THE ONE CHURCH) awakened by the Holy Spirit.....I pray this day....... whatever I write, preach and most importantly live, will only spur others on a relentless journey to follow Christ, be FILLED with the Holy Spirit and pour their lives out as disciples of Christ! "ENOUGH" is a book designed to bomb our minds with the glaring problems the church is facing. by valuing biblical correctness more that political correctness. It is intended to cause us to think about our current status, practice and direction. "ENOUGH" is not only to rant but also suggest biblical resolutions to aligning ourselves with Christ in order that His Holy Spirit may rest upon us all and we may become the Church, He longs us to be.....while it may offend the mind at some of its content, it is true that sometimes the gospel offends the mind as it reveals the heart!

Happy 4th of July

2010-07-02T13:31:00.001-07:00

Hey ALL of CLEVELAND.....Happy 4th of July! New City is in full swing of the summer grind! GET READY!!!!! for OFFBEAT 2010 coming August 7th

God is on the move

2010-03-11T10:44:00.000-08:00

Pray for us, God is doing amazing things all around us!! people are getting set free from Religion, Bondage, and Fear. We need the prayers of Gods people to remain in high alert, when we rattle the cages of HELL, based on the TRUTH of the Gospel......the war is intense. "let your Kingdom come, and your will be done"

New City Summer

2009-07-10T22:44:00.000-07:00

Hey stay posted to the new web-site as we will be posting all the new and upcoming stuff POP-N off at New City! We are glad your getting connected and involved with our city reaching effort!

Do-N The Thang at New City

2009-02-15T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hey Ya'll just saying what's up and giving God all the glory for He is good and worthy to praised!

We are loving the movement, and momentum we are seeing in the new spot! I can't wait for March 21st "March in The Madness" grand opening!

VISION BECOMING REALITY

2009-02-07T19:18:00.000-08:00

Back at the Bar......

The Club seats......LOL

A look from the corner spot...

Hip-Hop Shop and Coffee Bar......

Entry Way.......

These pictures are living evidence that God gives great vision and then fulfills it when we follow His leading. New City is 10 months old from its Launch date in April 2008. Look at the house God has moved us into and helped us to rebuild. We believe He is going to move in a big family in 2009! This building was built in 1839 and much like our great city was in much need of a renovation! God is still in the renovation buisness.......

I will add pictures of the rest of the facility in the days to come, also thank you Jim for your partnership with us in reaching a city.

Ready to Bang

2008-10-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

(My 2 favorite Disciples)

Hey all its been a while and lets face it, I am not one of these cats that stays up daily fixing my blog, twitter, my space, website, etc.... as some way of trying to find 30 sec of fame!!! Sorry to offend if I just described your life there.....:-) Well I spent a week in the ATL at the Catalyst event with 12,000 leaders and came home renewed and ready to hit the streets of Cleveland and BANG harder for the Kingdom than ever. So please pray for us cuz we are in the fight and know that are GOD is gonna win by KNOCK OUT ya dig!!!!!!

Go Hard before we go Home (Heaven)

REV D.

Corn Rows for REV D.

2008-07-17T20:35:00.000-07:00

THESE ARE THE FIRST PICS AFTER MY HOME GIRL FROM THE EAST COAST OF CLEVELAND, ROWED IT UP!!

GREAT JOB HOLLYWOOD,

The Church Re-Thought

2008-07-03T22:51:00.000-07:00

Well, it has been a while so let's just jump right to it. I have been wrestling with the truth about the church. So for you traditional theological heads you may hate this post; call me a heretic......if you said lunatic you'd be right. Check it out - I believe that through my 12 years of ministry, higher education, and experience of being around a lot of inward focused church people that we have a messed up understanding of the church. Before you start pulling out your commentary and church history books let me explain.

In the Old Testament the church (God's people) worshiped in the wilderness. The fact was the church was where they were because they were following the leading of their God. (Exodus)..........We could expound on this but I don't want to at this point.

We see the dwelling place of the Lord was in a place such as the ark of the covenant or in the temple; but when Jesus came, died, rose, and ascended we the people became the TEMPLE of the presence of God in the form of the Holy Spirit. (Acts) So we are the church, the dwelling place of God and so everywhere we go is the church.....because you are the church if you are a believer.......and the Spirit of the most High God dwells in you, or it should if you are really saved. So that means everywhere you go you should serve, preach, worship, baptize, share communion, heal the sick, etc....If you are only functioning in this capacity in your building you call your church than your view of the biblical church is narrow and will silo the ministry vision of God for your life as a believer.

I preach, serve, disciple, break bread, etc... in parks, schools, recreation centers, streets, bars, clubs, churches, stores, everywhere I go and so does the staff of New City. Why? because we are the church and we exist in a community that has no structure, no consistency, no commitment to anything other than spontaneous living. So settling our church in one location is an ineffective model in inner city Cleveland......just look at the churches functioning in that model for the last 100 years. We are a church with three different key service opportunity's to allow people to come and attend and all three are equal in effective ministry outcomes. However we are not limited to these three expressions of ministry, the truth is our mDNA (missionary DNA) is that the church is 24/7; not a building with a one hour service that functions like a organization, the church is a living organism.

Lets look at this in a bible passage as a way to show you the reason we don't look like everyone else and are still winning the lost and engaging them in discipleship. Acts 8 after the great day of Pentecost, and after the death Stephen; persecution scatters the church everywhere and listen to what happens in Acts 8:5-8 Phillip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Phillip and saw the miraculous signs he did, they all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many, and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there was great joy in that city.

Whats the point of this? The church was scattered and they were going and still preaching because the Holy Spirit was in them and whereever they went they did the work of the church.....without locking down in a trendy little location. New City is the west side of Cleveland and we are the church that is living in the Phillip expression. I also read this kind of model found in the Alan Hirsch book "The Forgotten Ways" called the living systems approach.

This is what Hirsch says "A living systems approach seeks to structure the common life of an organization around the rhythms and structures that mirror life itself. In this approach we seek to probe the nature of life, we seek to observe how living things tend to organize themselves, and then we try to emulate as closely as possible this innate capacity of living systems to develop higher levels of organization, to adapt to different conditions, and to activate latent intelligence when needed (emergence)."

This is the what we do at New City, we engage in our community understanding the rhythms and structures of life in inner city Cleveland and have found a productive way to implement Jesus in that realm. Is it unconventional? Without question!! can the normal theologian concepts grasp it? No not really......are we going to stop what is working based on criticism from a religious community that has shared Jesus from their pulpits and Sunday schools/discipleship classes in their buildings? Not at all.

I believe we have looked to our limited understanding of the church and its work and have forgotten about the very words of Jesus In John 14:12 "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father."

We should be seeing God do New things and move in new ways for one result......people coming to knowledge of the Fathers love and a saving relationship with Him through his SON Jesus. We must not lean so heavily on what we have been taught that we cannot see the newness and unpredictability of God working in our lives today. Are we experiencing the greater things that were not recorded in scripture but we are called to be doing in accordance with the very words of Jesus? The truth is no we are not because we hold on to our traditions, our denominational doctrines our theological stance and even though this creates a safety net for us, it tunes our ears to the voice of men and text books rather than the Holy Spirit and infinite wisdom of God.

Moral of the story: lets quit segregating ministry into missions, discipleship, evangelism, outreach, when it is all the work called the church......If you are the church (you, not the building) then these things should be seen in your life(your temple).

I'll wait for someone to ask about the scripture that says some are called to be pastors, apostles, evangelist, etc....before I answer that for you!!

Here is some food for thought. If you lost your building, would you lose your church?

In Da Club

2008-06-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Here we go, if darkness is no more than the absence of light then here comes the light. I am calling all Christ followers in the greater Cleveland area who feel led to join us for this maybe once in a life time opportunity. You see Gods Child and B-ready have been given the keys to the Symposium night club located at 11784 Detroit Ave, Lakewood, ohio on June 21st for an all out Christian music night in the midst of their normal business night. We are going to invite 200 believers to come rep Christ in a real , relevant, and relational way. We will share the good news through blaz-n- hip hop and give an invitation for those to come and know Christ. We will have the normal 7pm service at West Tech Lofts and then make the jump to serve at the club, this will be a late night but we are called to follow the Jesus model "GO" to real people, in real places, and share the realest message of hope ever shared. We are the salt and light fellow believers join us and shine so bright people are drawn to Jesus. I have tickets so lets not delay, lets make HIStory a modern day experience. PLEASE help make Jesus the famous one in Cleveland.

Giving God Glory through Media

2008-06-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7a9LYLK5yY

This the direct link to view the New City, news interview on channel five; I hope you are blessed by its content, and remember God is to be lifted up so He may draw all men unto him. If we are using media for any other agenda than making Jesus the famous one we are in a self motivated agenda that needs to be quickly addressed and surrendered. Who's glory are you working for?

The Creator is Creative

2008-06-01T10:54:00.000-07:00

A religious experience is often a systematic one, charted by the course of denominational expressions or people being drawn to leaders with similar life experiences. Sometimes this is okay, I suppose. However, I would say it is often taken too far.....let me explain; we live in a world that has a systematic way for everything, education, ordination, buying houses, etc.... and even in the world of Christianity we have a systematic theology that cuts the path for coming to Christ, becoming like Christ, and hearing from Christ. We teach this in our institutes of higher religious learning and create a mold in which one experiences God, and even how we all should go about sharing God with the world around us. This is again okay to some degree, yet also very damaging to the individual experience with God and even the individual expression of faith by believers. When we continue teaching the cookie cutter way of coming to Christ and even how we do church, do worship, do life as a believer we just perpetuate the problems of creating new traditions. This limits the church to a mere imitation model of what is working in other places and then we all flock to conferences and seminars to see how to implement someone else's strategy for success into our lives, and/or communities of faith. Don't misread me here, we can learn a great deal from one another and should; but at some point we need to have some real Holy Spirit innovative ideas and movements that is not merely a fad or model that is the way for the fleeting moment it will be around. Perfect example would be this, ask yourself how many different ways could you enjoy the sun in the middle of a beautiful summer day? On the real, the ways people would enjoy the sun is vast and filled with diversity yet it is still an experience of enjoying the sun.......my point is this, there is a variety of ways to experience the Son also, and it is the very creative nature of God the creator to allow us the freedom of individual faith. So why is it that so many Christian leaders are so bent out of shape if we all don't just fall in line in do it thier way? Maybe God is wanting to express Himself in a new way through you. Don't get caught up in the organization of religion but the creativity of your creator, you just might experience something God is wanting to do in you that know else can teach you but Him. I would also say remember that usually when God is at work and calling you to do something it will be doomed in the eyes of man for failure.......so be brave and allow the creator God to create in you. You need wise leaders, but none is wiser than the holy most high God, so tune your ear toward His.

http://www.newcitystreets.com

The First Thought

2008-05-27T14:30:00.000-07:00

What's up Peeps? Hope this finds you well, I am trying to really get a feal for why the movement of church planting has lacked in the area of reaching and planting deep into the inner cities of America? I have my own personal opinions, and since this is my Blog it's OK to share them....lol, or maybe not. I believe the real reason people in the church planting movement are not coming into the heart of the city is rooted primarily in the vein of financial security and self sustainable budgeting? However it remains the location of the largest concentration of the poorest of the poor and the dwelling place of the many broken in this country. So why isn't God calling people to plant in the city, or is He and we are not responding? Wow it's getting warm in here anyone else warm or is just me? Let's keep it real, church and even church planting is some what of a an entrepreneurial business these days and if you can't pay the bills its tough to live; but some where along the way I learned that serving sometimes calls for sacrificing, and some times sacrificing even may call for dying; to self surely, but even possibly physically. Is this the type of Christians we are in the 21st century or are we an opportunistic people only looking to plant churches in areas that are less risky? Here's the deal Pastoring the people God may be calling you too may mean you are less of a professional minister in the terms of vocation and more of a servant that earns a living through a domain of society in order to bring the excellence of outreach and church planting to an area that may not offer you much tangible gain in life but provides an opportunity to practice Christ like ministry by sharing life with those on the fringes of life and society. I believe Jesus would be in the hood in the 21st century and the church leaders would still crucify Him. Maybe not with a cross and nails, but surely through political positioning and professional displacement. Jesus was a fringe leader, maybe you are too? So who is keeping you from responding to the call to the fringes?