Randy & Joan Nabors
Randy Nabors serves as the senior coordinator of the New City Network along with his wife Joan who is his side-kick, fellow fighter of crime and injustice, and serves as his credibility! Randy also serves as the Coordinator of Urban & Mercy Ministries under Mission to North America, is the Pastor Emeritus at New City Fellowship Chattanooga, and is a retired Army Reserve Chaplain.
Randy and Joan were called to urban and cross-cultural ministry from a young age. They both grew up in the same low income housing project in the inner city of Newark NJ and came to Christ through the ministry of Calvary Gospel Church.
In God’s mercy both Randy and Joan were able to attend and graduate from Covenant College in Chattanooga TN where Joan was one of the first African-American students to integrate the school. While at Covenant College, they became involved in a little mission Sunday School known as Third Street. This ministry was focused on a poor African American neighborhood in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
During Randy’s junior year the mission added worship services and he began to help with the preaching. Randy and Joan moved into the neighborhood after getting married and continued serving there after graduating college. In 1973 they moved to St. Louis MO to attend Covenant Theological Seminary and served at Grace & Peace Fellowship and Sutter Avenue Presbyterian Church in urban youth ministry.
Joan worked as a social worker in St. Louis, and when Randy was called back to Chattanooga to organize the mission as a church (now called New City Fellowship), she worked again for the State of Tennessee Department of Human Services. Randy served as the lead pastor of New City from 1976 until he stepped down and became the Pastor Emeritus in 2012. While serving as senior pastor of New City Fellowship Chattanooga, the church gave Randy and Joan a leave of absence to pastor a church in Nairobi, Kenya for two years. Randy has been involved with Prison Fellowship, served as an Army Reserve Chaplain retiring as a Colonel in 2007, and written two books: Merciful and Insufficient. Randy and Joan have four children and eleven grandchildren. They continue to live in Chattanooga and worship at New City whenever they are home.
The vision and mission for New City Fellowship was and is to be a congregation committed to the African American and poor communities of Chattanooga. It is a cross-cultural ministry, attempting to live out the power of the Gospel especially in reconciliation and justice. It has focused on ministries of evangelism, mercy, economic development, indigenous leadership, and the radicalization of the middle class into justice discipleship. In God’s providence other New City congregations were begun around the country. The Network is an attempt to bring them together for mutual support and encouragement.