OUR MISSION IS TO GO MUCH DEEPER THAN SUNDAY

When we think of church, most of us think of a Sunday morning trip to a sanctuary to gather to worship, pray and listen to a message about God, shared by a deeply educated member of clergy. For some, this is exactly what they need at this time in their journey. It may be a familiar, traditional, comfortable sweet-spot where they continue to grow in understanding. For others, there is a sense of yearning, wanting, maybe even needing or craving something more, something deeper.

Should there be more?

Should there be more deep, intimate, family-level community with our fellow siblings in the Church body? Should there be more mission? More leadership and spiritual gift development? More prayer life? More sharing each others’ burdens and victories? More intentional bible study - performed by all and not just the preacher? More outreach? More urgency for those still outside the family?

As we look to foster a different style of church community, we seek to focus on these yearnings and are working to remove all the extraneous, non-essential elements of what it means to be a “Church” so that we can simply focus on Jesus, the Christ and His mission fur us to B the Church!

There will be no building to call “Church”, no overhead like utilities, rent or mortgage expenses to get in the way of our stewardship. Instead, we choose to gather in homes, in small groups of 5-20 where intimacy and deep relationships can be nurtured. Every so often we must also split to grow the body and extend the mission to others who want to join us. This is by far the hardest part. But like parents developing their children to mature and start their own families, we must also develop our church family and equip each other to be able to grow the next generations. We will, however, gather as a family whole for a time of prayer and worship, in a sort of monthly family reunion to celebrate and reconnect and appreciate all God is doing through our collective efforts.

There will be no paid staff, for all leaders and those future leaders we develop as a church, have and will continue to have their own primary professions. Again, this is so our stewardship may not be diluted.

We will work our way through the entire Bible each year, every one of us. While this sounds daunting, the average time per day to accomplish this is just 20-30 minutes, plus any additional time you dedicate to reflection and research. This is to equip us all with personal knowledge of the Word so that we may personally own its message and be equipped to cross-examine teaching against the Scriptures on our own strength. There should be no reason those who seek to know God lack knowledge of what His Word does or does not say. This is a fundamental value we must treasure!

Lastly, our fellowship will be far more frequent that just once a week. Though we may only gather in formal groups physically once or twice per week (as desired by each group), we stay in contact virtually daily, discussing our reading, sharing life’s concerns, prayer requests, etc. Thankfully, technology easily allows us to be connected in so many ways, we really have no valid excuse for denying the loving, personal relationships we’re called to have as members of the same body of Christ.

If you feel this is a model of “church” you’d like to explore or learn more about, we encourage you to reach out and ask questions, help us connect you to a group near you - or possibly even a cyber group for those who live very remote or rural or who are unable to travel to a gathering for whatever reason.We’d love to learn about your journey and see if we can help nurture its further growth.

We know this isn’t a model for everyone and we’re not saying this is the only or even best way to “do church”, but we’ve seen how powerful this model has been in many areas, how it’s filled in gaps in the desired experience of many long-time church-goers and we have a passion to live out the church experience as we see modeled Biblically as much as we can.

Thank you! And WELCOME to B the Church!

Chad McBeam