A Servant's Heart

Wayland Thompson

The relationship between Neighborhood Christian Legal Clinic and Northview Church is relatively new, but the fit is a natural one. Outreach Pastor Wayland Thompson says, “Every partner we have or initiative we undertake from an outreach standpoint is tied to our primary missions initiatives of meeting people at their point of need, restoring to wholeness what is broken, and sharing the Gospel.”

These efforts were at first small, but the church has seen rapid growth since its founding. Northview Church is 36 years old and started with just 30 people at Carmel Elementary School. Now, they have 7 campuses across Central Indiana. Deeply entrenched in the community, their mission is about seeing a need and playing an active role in meeting that need. “We have always said that we want to be the kind of church that if we disappeared tomorrow that our communities would feel the loss,” says Wayland. “We believe that to get to this place, you have to roll up your sleeves and start to serve your neighbors.”

Northview Church

Very often, Northview’s manner of serving is directly connected to their partnerships. Two of their most significant partners are International Justice Mission in Ghana and India, and Brookside Community Church. Alongside Brookside, Wayland says Northview focuses on assisting various marginalized groups. He says the church helps to develop “Christ-centered character development for vulnerable youth, programming to help previously incarcerated men and women enter back into society upon their release, and a housing initiative that will help provide stability to struggling families.” By seeing the importance and impact of justice-centered work and through coming to learn more about systemic injustice and generational poverty, Northview Church determined to prioritize justice initiatives—and thus a relationship with the Legal Clinic was borne.

Northview isn’t interested in just making surface-level changes though. They want to see true transformation in their community through sharing the Gospel. “We realize this is messy and takes an extended commitment, but we believe this is where Jesus is—so that’s where we want to be.”

To learn more about Northview Church, please visit their website.