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In 2012, a small group felt that the church in the New Testament models and requires a few things that have become very difficult to find in the modern local church.
The teaching of the scriptures was at a very high level in the New Testament and it was the expectation that interacting with God’s Word would cause heart and life change along with increased knowledge and understanding. It was clear that the purpose of Bible teaching was not to build personal towers of knowledge; it was for the purpose of equipping the learner in their own work of leading people and pointing people toward God, for the glory of God.
Though the New Testament “body of Christ” spent quite a lot of time together and shared their resources and experiences, we weren’t able to find anything in our local churches that seemed like people were transparently “doing life” together. Instead, the code of behavior implied actually makes people feel they cannot “be themselves” or relax into real friendship.
The New Testament church interacted closely with, and therefore reached, the secular world around them.
They did not hold themselves apart or look with disdain on the damned souls that surrounded them.
They rubbed shoulders with them.
They are with them.
They worked with them.
They engaged them in conversation about meaningful things.
And by their love for one another and by their care for the marginalized, they showed the watching world what it looks like to be loved by God.
These are the main things that were addressed in our decision making about how to construct our new church. With no sense at all of all the superiority or blame for other groups, we essentially threw out anything that could be labeled “traditions of men” and we tried to hold tight to the imperatives of God.
The result is LOCF. We do not hold that it is better than any other local church, which is why if you are already involved in another church community, we encourage you to stay and try to move your own community in the direction that God is calling you. We do, however, hold that it is distinctive from other local churches.
It is a place to come as you truly are, to learn how God’s Word fits together, so that you can be equipped to make your own disciples of Christ. It is a place where you can experience being a part of the “body of Christ” in a way that is probably very different from your previous experience.
If you are curious about our way of doing things...
If you are curious about Christianity stripped of its traditions...
If you are curious about the Creator God and what it looks like to begin a relationship with Him...
If you have a broken relationship with the Church...
We welcome you to any of our meetings or events.
It turns out that stripping the church experience of many of the things that are currently part of many of the things that have become the norm, creates a space where many people find that they can reopen that door and plug back in. We have evolved as a community into something that is less non-denominational and more interdenominational.