+ how is this different from a small group?

Our focus is not on a particular church structure or model, but rather on pursuing the heart of God’s church.

With that being said, does your small group feel like family? Do you regularly pray together, worship together and encourage one another? Is everyone participating, growing, and contributing their spiritual gifts? If so, wonderful! But if these groups are considered ancillary to a Sunday morning service — which most small groups are — they are the first to fall by the wayside. For example: do churches ever have to “relaunch” Sunday services? No. But do they have to relaunch small groups? All the time!

We believe that by de-emphasizing our current Sunday morning structure and driving believers small first, we will encourage people to be the church — not just attend one and sometimes make a small group.

+ What about kids?

We are excited about the idea of kids worshipping, praying and being a part of a spiritual community alongside their parents! We have much to learn from them and their child-like faith, and they can benefit greatly by observing their parents live out what they’ve been taught. And while there may be times when it is beneficial to separate out, we encourage churches to include children as much as possible.

A couple options for the kids could be having the adults rotate watching them each week or paying a sitter to do so. Remember, when giving is localized to the house churches, this can be a part of how you sow God’s money.

We encourage churches to take a meeting every couple of months and devote it solely to involving the kids and having fun.

+ Do you have larger meetings?

We meet at least once a month as a large group and encourage everyone to come join us under the banner of Christ’s name (click here to see our Large Meetings page)

We also have many other large meetings that occur during the week at the Tabernacle and beyond (see our Calendar page for more info)

+ What about Money? Can I Give?

Individual churches are encouraged to pray about a ministry to sow into together or to find ways to practically bless those around them. We want to empower people to be the church in this area and to be actively involved in the process.

We also realize that there are great things we can accomplish as a larger church body. If you’d like to contribute this way, please visit our Giving page by clicking here.

+ Is there a leadership structure?

We believe in having overseers within the churches as a resource to help plant and guide. We desire each church to be planted by a pair of these trusted leaders who can then identify and disciple others who can do the same.

We want to discourage a top-down system where one person is governing over all things for an extended period of time. The biblical examples of Paul and the apostles were to help establish the church, guide it, leave it, and then be a resource. They were not specified as the sole decision makers but rather that distinction is given to the people (Acts 15:22,25). Their role was to help the church come to wise decisions as well as acting as shepherds protecting from wolves. We desire for our leaders to have a similar role within the churches and for them to constantly be raising up others who can be entrusted with establishing and grounding more communities.

Good leaders are reflected when the whole church knows their giftings, is actively using them, and can function as a whole in being led by God.

+ We want to start doing church in this way but don’t know where to begin or how it can look

Please see our “Where to Begin” page for some good insight on where to start