We are growing the Church one living room at a time.
Who We Are.
We exist to grow the Church of Jesus Christ through training and supporting house church leaders who can lead a small gathering of believers in their home. We plant micro-churches that are committed to living in gospel-centered community and reach the neighhorhood around with with love, service, and the gospel. Similar to the Church we see in Acts 2, these gatherings are made up of the teaching of God’s Word, prayer, breaking bread, and mission.
How Do We Do It?
Our training program for the house church pastors is one year. We spend the first 6 months in an intensive seminary like training. In this first 6 months we insure a sound doctrine and theological understanding and framework. After this initial 6 month period our pastors then launch their house church gathering. For the following 6 months we continue in training and support. Our focus shifts to pastoral care and ministry. Our goal is to keep these gatherings to 4-5 families to ensure deep and meaningful fellowship and discipleship. We also desire for these families to all be close in proximity to remain effective in ministry and mission. The vision is for our pastors to identify men within the gathering who have a desire and calling for ministry and intentionally disciple them. These men would possibly join our training program and launch a new gathering in the event the house church became too large.
Fellowship.
The Church at its core is simply the fellowship of God’s people. It has become much more complex over the centuries, but at its birth, the Church was created to be the fellowship of believers living on mission together in bringing glory to God. Not a building, not an event, but a people. This is the constant theme of God’s people throughout the Bible. Being created in the image of the Triune God, we were made to live in community with others (Genesis 26). Christ tells us in Matthew chapter 22 that the greatest two commands are to love God with everything we have and love our neighbor as ourselves. When Jesus prays for the church in John 17, He repeatedly prays that we would be one, just as He and the Father are one. When the Holy Spirit fills the believers in Acts 2 the product is a deep commitment and glad submission to sacrificial, intentional community. Though this early church was not perfect, the direction and encouragement sent to the churches from the apostles remained the same – keep loving one another earnestly (1 Peter 4:8), keep serving one another (Galatians 5:13), live in harmony with one another (Romans 12:6), and do not neglect the fellowship (Hebrews 10:25).
Due to our conviction that fellowship is at the center of the Church defined in God’s Word, the fellowship of believers is at the core of our mission. We are convinced that the world will know we are His disciples by the way we love one another (John 13:35). We know that gospel-centered fellowship not only brings immense joy but shines a bright light of the glory and grace of God to the world around us. We believe the Church prays, the Church worships, the Church gives generously, the Church makes disciples, and the Church is taught the Word of God all within the context of Christian fellowship.
Our Commitments.
These are the values that bind us together as a diverse yet unified network of house churches.
Jesus.
In all things, we value Jesus as the image of the invisible God. He is the head of the Church and as such the head of our ministry. We aim to mimic His way in all that we do. In our theology, He is the center. He is our model, our mediator, our savior, judge, and king. He is above all things and in Him all things hold together. All of our values are based upon the foundation of who He is, His character, and His example of ministry.
The Bible.
We trust in the absolutely inerrant and infallible Word of God. We believe that all scripture is breathed by God and useful for teaching, reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness. In our depraved human state, we rely on the Bible to be the rule of our faith and standard of Truth. We believe it is all useful for today and fully submit to all scripture and its authority. The scriptures are how we know God, see His nature, and understand who we are. It is a mirror that shows us who we really are, and also a window we gaze through to see the beauty, wonder, love, and grace of God.
Prayer.
We commit to a life of prayer. Without prayer and complete dependence on God, we are prone to wander and fail. We believe the Church must be committed to prayer day and night. We must pray for the coming of God’s Kingdom, for the world around us, for the strength of the Holy Spirit to persevere, and for a deeper relationship and revelation of God. Prayer deepens our relationship with God as well as our understanding of His love for us and the world.
Fellowship.
We commit ourselves to one another. We believe that when we are saved we are graphed into a family and are not to neglect that fellowship. God calls us into a mission with His people and that mission is to be carried out with the fellowship of fellow believers. We were created for community. The Christian life was never intended to be lived out in isolation or privacy. We believe that isolation and independence only breed sin and is a cancer that destroys the Church. Therefore we are committed to a life of deep, meaningful, gospel-centered fellowship.
Simplicity.
The primary way we renounce the slavery and idolatry of materialism is by embracing a simple lifestyle. We commit to operating each and every church plant in a simple way. We also commit to operating as a ministry in a simple way. In doing so we maximize our resources to terminate on meeting the needs of our communities and furthering the spread of the gospel. We do not believe that money or possessions are inherently evil or to be avoided, but that there is a great danger in loving these things, and we identify the love of these things as one of the greatest perils facing our culture today. Therefore we intentionally use wealth and resources to service the Kingdom and care for the poor, rather than personal fulfillment or inappropriate luxury.
Generosity.
Because we value community and simplicity we are committed to generosity. We love because He first loved us. We share because we view all of our resources as gifts from God. We share because this promotes healthy relationship and helps to break the bondage of materialism. In being generous with our money and possessions we confess that God is the true owner of all things and we are merely stewards of these good gifts. We hold all things with open hands and pursue relentless generosity. We believe loving our neighbors as we love ourselves includes our resources. We encourage all whom we shepherd to give as often and generously as they can. To this end, the collective finances and resources of this ministry set an example of this value.
Mission.
We believe that each and every Christian is a sent person. We are convinced that the Church is not the Church until it engages in the mission for which God has called it. The glorification of God, the preaching of His gospel, and the making of disciples are our mission. We believe that God is already at work with the poor and the lost in the world, and we are co-laborers with Him in reaching them with the good news of Jesus Christ. We love the poor because God does. We love the orphan because God does. And we love the lost because God graciously uses ordinary people like us to do accomplish His purposes in salvation.
The Empowering Holy Spirit.
We recognize that we have been regenerated, reborn, and sanctified, and will persevere to the end because of the miraculous and gracious work of the Holy Spirit. We affirm that it is the work of the Holy Spirit that leads us into knowledge of God, understanding, obedience, and conviction. We affirm that it is the Holy Spirit who empowers us to both live in fellowship with one another and reach the lost around us. This value of empowerment is expressed in all spiritual gifts and callings for all people for the sake of the mission and the building up of the body of Christ.
OUR BOARD
Wes Ireton
Founder/President
Sarah Ireton
Founder/Secretary
Mick Ireton
Board Member
Scott Jester
Board Member