On Washington Boulevard in Cleveland Heights, New Community Bible Fellowship anchors a city block with three Sunday morning worship services, a hundred-plus small groups meeting across Northeast Ohio, and a constant flow of ministries for every age from infants to retirees. Founded in 1994 by Pastor Kevin James and his wife Tanya, the non-denominational church now serves a membership of more than 2,300 and partners with roughly forty ministries and missions groups around the world. Visitors who walk in on a Sunday will find a teaching-oriented congregation that describes itself simply as a community of believers committed to following Jesus together.
From a TRI-C Bible Talk to a 650-Seat Sanctuary
New Community Bible Fellowship grew out of a vision Pastor James received in 1985, nearly a decade before the church was launched. The vision was for a unique church in a major northern city that would reach people outside the walls of any congregation and help them live a life of joy and purpose in Christ. After years of leadership training at Southwest Christian Fellowship in Atlanta and a Master of Divinity degree at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago, Pastor James and Tanya relocated to Cleveland in September 1993.
The first gathering was a Bible study and prayer meeting with fifteen people at a community college on the east side of Cleveland, soon known around the church as Bible Talks. Home Bible studies, called Life Groups, began at the same time and remain a defining piece of New Community's ministry to this day. The first Sunday worship service was held on April 10, 1994, with twenty adult members. By 1999 the church had grown to four hundred members and acquired a building on Washington Boulevard in Cleveland Heights, purchased from a Jewish congregation and able to seat 650 worshippers. The move into a permanent home launched a long stretch of organizational growth, adding officers, ministry leaders, musicians, artists, and staff; producing a musical CD; running city-wide celebration events; and partnering with local and foreign mission groups.
Today the church describes its mission with one sentence: to see lives changed through the power of Jesus Christ. A current theme around the church is captured in the phrase "We Are Going Beyond," an invitation to pursue holiness, expand vision, and step out in faith toward the next chapter.
Three Sunday Mornings on Washington Boulevard
Sunday is the heartbeat of the week at New Community. Three identical-format services run back to back at 8:00 AM, 10:00 AM, and 12:00 PM. The 8:00 AM gathering is in-person only; the 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM services are offered in person and are livestreamed on YouTube. Each service includes God-centered worship, biblical teaching, and space for prayer. Visitors are invited to come as they are, and after the service pastors are available in the lobby to meet newcomers.
The building itself is the former Jewish congregation facility purchased in 1999, and the sanctuary anchors a campus that also includes a Fellowship Hall, classrooms, an Apartment for smaller meetings, a Teen Room, a Café used by marriage and other groups, and additional gathering spaces. The first Sunday of each month is set aside as Family Worship Sunday, when children ages six and older, teens, and adults remain together for the entire service. On the second, third, and fourth Sundays, children through preteens attend Kingdom Kids during the 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM services, and teens in grades 7 through 12 are dismissed to Kingdom Teens.
Greeters are stationed to direct families to the children's and student areas, and free parking is available on site. A livestream link is posted so that anyone unable to attend in person can join from home, and recent sermon recordings are available through the church's YouTube channel.
Bible Teaching and Beliefs
New Community calls itself a teaching-oriented ministry. The doctrinal statement at the heart of the church runs across twelve core convictions. The Holy Bible, composed of 66 books, is held to be the inspired, inerrant, and only infallible Word of God, with final authority on matters of life, faith, and practice. There is one God, eternally existent and manifested in three co-equal persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Human beings were created in God's image but fell into sin through disobedience, bringing on the entire race a depraved nature and separation from God.
Salvation is the gift of God by grace alone, received through personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and made visible in works that please God. The Holy Spirit is described as the Promise of the Father, the Comforter and Teacher who indwells the believer, places him or her in the body of Christ, bestows spiritual gifts, and produces spiritual fruit. The church teaches the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus, His virgin birth, His sinless life, His miracles, and His role as the only true Mediator between God and man.
Two ordinances are observed until Christ's return: Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Baptism is performed by immersion and is described as a picture of Christ's burial and resurrection, of new life in Him, and of the believer's identification with Christ and His body, the church. The Second Coming is held to be the visible, personal, and glorious return of Jesus Christ to rapture His Bride.
Life Groups: The Heartbeat of New Community
From its earliest months, New Community has built its ministry around small groups. The congregation teaches that "two are better than one, because if you fall someone is there to help you up," and a Life Group is defined as three or more people who gather each week in a home or at the church to hang out, study the Word, and pray together. Groups come in all shapes and sizes: married couples, singles, men, women, college students, working adults, and teens.
More than a hundred groups are organized into eight tracks. Women's groups meet on Sundays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, with many meeting on Tuesday evenings at 7:00 PM and others running virtually through Zoom. Men's groups run a parallel calendar, including weekday morning, midday, and evening options as well as virtual meetings. Co-ed Christian Foundation tracks walk through five sequential studies covering Knowing God, Growing Spiritually, How to Study the Bible, A Walk Thru the Bible, and Doctrine and Theology. Marriage groups meet on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Peer support groups address freedom, identity, grief, divorce, disability, and health challenges. Outreach groups engage the local community in hospitals, detention centers, and senior care facilities. Young adult men's and women's groups, plus teen life groups, round out the calendar.
Sign-ups for any group are coordinated through the small groups page, and many groups require a printed study book that members can purchase through links provided on each group's listing.
Kingdom Kids: Gospel-Centered Formation from Infancy to Preteen
Children's ministry at New Community is called Kingdom Kids and is built around the Gospel Project curriculum, a Christ-centered program that walks children through the entire Bible every three years and emphasizes heart transformation over behavior modification. The ministry describes its mission as changing the lives of the next generation through Jesus Christ and believes every child deserves to experience the redeeming power of the gospel.
On Sundays at the 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM services, children from babies through preteens gather in their own environments to learn about God, build friendships, and grow in their faith. On the first Sunday of the month, those services are suspended for Family Worship Sunday so children ages six and older can worship alongside their parents. A monthly Family Discipleship Guide gives parents a resource to continue the conversation at home, and additional parent resources cover topics like protecting young minds, technology use, and emotional intelligence.
The Ability Ministry is a Bible support group for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities and their caregivers, meeting Sundays at 10:00 AM in the Apartment. A team of volunteers serves in roles including Check-In, Infants, Toddlers, Pre-K, and Grades 2-5, and a volunteer discipleship group meets every other Thursday evening.
Kingdom Teens and the Young Adult Years
Kingdom Teens is the church's ministry for students ages 13 to 17, with the stated goal of seeing teen lives changed by the power of Jesus Christ. On Sunday mornings, teen life groups gather during the 10:00 AM service in designated rooms, with separate monthly small groups for teen girls (Truth Seekers) and teen boys (Young Men of Valor) paired with adult mentors, and a co-ed Wednesday night gathering called Tribe Night.
Elevate is the young adult ministry, drawing college students and young professionals from across Northeast Ohio. Elevate gathers on the first and third Fridays of each month at 7:00 PM during the fall, winter, and spring for worship, teaching, and life groups, with fun social events woven into the schedule. The community is followed on Instagram at @ncbfelevate, and team members serve in production, worship, and leadership. A separate bi-weekly College and Christ group meets virtually on Sunday afternoons to keep college students connected to the church while they are away from Cleveland.
S.A.L.T., which stands for Single Adults Living Transformed, is the singles ministry for unmarried adults college-age and up. S.A.L.T. Connections meets on the second and fourth Fridays at 7:00 PM in Rooms 10 and 11, with additional summer outings around Cleveland. A Christ and Coffee gathering meets monthly on the first Saturday morning at Rising Star Coffee in Shaker Heights.
Men, Women, Marriage, and the Seasoned Saints
Men's ministry is anchored in T.R.U.E. Men Fellowship, an evolving community of men committed to four defining characteristics and six core values: Pursue God, Love Family, Raise Children, Work Hard, Serve Jesus, and Help Men. The fellowship's signature campaign is 1000 Men Strong, an effort to see 1,000 men across Northeast Ohio regularly involved in Bible study and prayer groups with other men. M.A.D. Men (Make A Difference Men) groups meet on Wednesday evenings at three levels of engagement; M.A.D. Men in the City ministers to young men at the Cuyahoga Detention Center in partnership with Youth for Christ; and T.R.U.E. Men Outreach blends virtual Bible study with intentional outreach on alternating weeks.
Women's ministry is led by a Women's Leadership Team and offers dozens of small groups on topics ranging from Experiencing God and the Holy Spirit to identity, rejection, grief, prayer, finances, and the lives of women in the Bible. Many of these groups meet virtually on Zoom, allowing women to participate from anywhere.
The 3 Strand Cord Marriage Ministry works to strengthen marriages around the picture from Ecclesiastes 4:12 that a cord of three strands is not quickly broken. Couples meet in groups such as Kingdom Marriage, Love and Respect, Cord of Three Strands, Becoming One Flesh, and Better Together, drawing on resources by Tony Evans, Timothy Keller, Gary Chapman, Paul David Tripp, and others.
Seasoned Saints is the church's ministry for adults ages sixty and up, creating space for fellowship, teaching, prayer, and special gatherings so that older adults continue growing in faith and purpose. The Golden Care Ministry takes this further by sending teams to McGregor's Home in East Cleveland to encourage elderly residents with prayer and the love of Christ.
Freedom Ministry: Walking Out of Strongholds
One distinctive ministry at New Community is the Freedom Ministry, which grew out of a partnership with Freedom in Christ Ministries (FICM). The team recognized that some members were struggling silently with deeper issues that small groups alone could not address, so they trained a corps of disciple-makers to walk alongside others in a confidential process of repentance and faith.
The Freedom Ministry offers an approximately eight-week discipleship process that culminates in a Freedom Appointment, a focused time of prayer through The Steps to Freedom in Christ. Areas of focus include persistent fear or troubling thoughts, recurring struggles with sin, anger or emotional struggles, difficulty believing or applying God's truth, and past experiences that continue to affect a believer's spiritual life. There are versions of the process for teens and children, with parent or guardian consent required for minors. Continuation groups include The Freedom Group, offered both in person and online, and Mandentity for men.
Care, Prayer, and Peer Support
Pastoral care at New Community is led by Michael Howard, the Family and Care Pastor, who is available to pray with families through hospitalization, the loss of a loved one, accidents, and other crises. The Care Corner, the church's care hub, collects testimonies, prayer requests, praise reports, and a list of community resources, and it hosts ongoing events including hospital visitations, home visits, prayer gatherings, grief support meetings, and outreach opportunities.
A Faithful to the Finish team coordinates hospital and hospice visits for members and visitors, working alongside the Care Pastor. A weekly New Community Friday Prayer Call runs from 12:00 to 1:00 PM by phone (dial 1-202-926-1171, code 554716), with a leader guiding prayer, encouragement, and intercession. The GriefShare and DivorceCare programs run 13-week support cycles, and a separate My Body His Temple group supports people experiencing health-related challenges.
Prayer requests can be submitted online at any time, and a dedicated Prayer and Praise Service gathers the congregation for extended worship and prayer. A regular Sunday morning altar call invites those who have made a decision for Christ to follow up with the Executive Pastor, Marshal Ausberry, who walks new believers through next steps including baptism and Starting Point membership classes.
Starting Point: The Path to Membership
Anyone interested in formally joining New Community Bible Fellowship is invited into Starting Point, a three-part new members class offered several times a year in winter, spring, summer, and fall. The classes are held in person in classrooms 10 and 11 from 10:30 AM to 2:30 PM and cover Church Membership, Salvation, the Doctrinal Statement, and Baptism in Part 1; Vision and Growth Strategy in Part 2; and S.H.A.P.E. (Spiritual Gifts, Heart, Abilities, Personality, and Experiences) and Ministry Service in Part 3. Members complete a Pre-Member Workbook and Handbook, sign a Ministry Covenant, complete a Ministry Service Form, and take a Spiritual Gifts Survey. The classes culminate in baptism for those who have not yet been baptized, a right hand of fellowship, and an Installation Sunday when new members are publicly welcomed into the congregation.
Baptism at New Community is celebrated as a public declaration of faith and is performed by immersion. The baptism page walks candidates through fourteen scriptural pictures of baptism, including Christ's burial and resurrection, new birth, identification with Christ and His body, the inward cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, obedience to Christ's command in Matthew 28:19-20, and the example of Jesus' own baptism. Anyone who has trusted Christ is encouraged to be baptized as soon as possible without waiting to feel "good enough."
Outreach Beyond the Walls
The church's values statement includes the line: "We reach beyond our church walls, sending members and resources to help local communities and people around the world." In practice, that looks like M.A.D. Men in the City serving incarcerated young men at the Cuyahoga Detention Center, Golden Care teams visiting McGregor's Home, and Faithful to the Finish volunteers walking alongside members through hospital and hospice visits. T.R.U.E. Men Outreach alternates between virtual Bible study and intentional outreach across the city.
New Community also partners with and supports roughly forty ministries and mission groups throughout the United States and around the world, channeling a portion of its giving toward Kingdom impact locally in Cleveland, across the state of Ohio, and globally. A giving page describes these efforts in terms of "making a Kingdom impact," with a teaching on tithing rooted in Malachi 3:10.
Giving at New Community
Giving is taught as an act of worship and trust. The church teaches tithing, or giving ten percent of gross income, as a way of acknowledging that everything comes from God and trusting Him as the supplier of every need. New Community Bible Fellowship does not require tithing for membership, though it does require tithing of those who carry formal leadership.
Members and supporters can give through PushPay, by texting the letters "NCBF" plus the amount to 77977, by Venmo at @give2ncbf, by mail to the Washington Boulevard address, or by placing a gift in one of the gray drop boxes in the Sanctuary, Fellowship Hall, or near the rear double doors. Giving history is tracked through Church Community Builder, where members can view giving records, print statements, and manage their accounts.
Leadership and Staff
Kevin James is the founding and Senior Pastor of New Community Bible Fellowship. He has been involved in ministering the gospel and developing disciples for more than thirty years in the United States, Ghana, India, and the Ukraine, and holds a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School near Chicago. He and his wife Tanya have been married for more than thirty-five years and have three children and two grandchildren.
Michael Howard serves as the Family and Care Pastor, providing support, prayer, and resources for members in life's difficult seasons. Marshal Ausberry serves as Executive Pastor and walks alongside new believers who have made decisions for Christ. Jada Boggan coordinates the church's serve opportunities.
Whether someone arrives on a Sunday morning for the first of three worship services, joins a Tuesday evening Life Group over Zoom, or steps into a Freedom Appointment to walk out of a long-held struggle, New Community Bible Fellowship presents itself as a community where every stage of life has a place, every generation is taught the Word, and every member is invited to keep going beyond.