The background...
In 1997, God drew together a group of young adults with a passion to just simply worship him. Every Tuesday night a couple hundred people would assemble for an evening called ASAP (As Simple As Possible). it was a highlight of many people’s lives. In the Spring of 2005 though transition began to overtake us. It was a God thing. People just knew that God was speaking and it was time to change. Change to what though? That we didn’t know. So we committed to pray and listen. We even changed our program so that we could dedicate ourselves fully to seeking God. Every other week we would cancel ASAP just so we could commit ourselves to prayer. It was awesome to watch God lead that year. Every week we would come together, and every week God would have something different to share. Values and dreams that he was speaking over his people. Destiny for them and for this city that he loves. But amidst all this value and dream talk we still were not sure how he was actually asking us to live these values out? Were we to simply continue on as a Young Adult community with a newly clarified purpose? Or was there something deeper at work that he had in store for us? This was a question he was stunningly quiet on, but on the opening night of prayer he had given us a clue – a parable if you will. On our first night of prayer, two of the members in our group had a picture come to their minds of the cities water systems. Further, one of them felt as if was saying – “ I’m going to tamper with the water systems.” Now all of us agreed that God spoke in visions and dreams, but no one at all had any sense of what the vision was pointing to.
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A week later, the answer came. One of the group members was praying about the water systems picture when an interpretation began to emerge. The answer was actually quite simple. What is water? Its always a symbol of God’s presence – the person of Jesus made real to us by the Holy Spirit. And what are water systems? They are the structures, the means by which water is transported to the people of a community. Bingo. Put it together. God said on that opening night… “ I’m going to tamper with the water systems.” I’m going to tamper with the way Jesus is being delivered to the people of this community. In other words… I’m going to tamper with the structures of the church. I’m going to change the way Jesus is being offered to the people of this world. All that to say, we knew that God was going to build a new structure, a new way by which his church was going to exist together. But what was the new structure? In February the answer began to emerge. Together, as we continued to pray, we began to get a picture of the church moving back into the neighborhoods, back into the homes and places where people actually lived and worked. Imagine simple churches, meeting in every neighborhood, in homes or coffee shops, with a heart for the neighborhood they met in. Imagine simple churches, led by simple people, with a dream to see more and more simple churches planted. Imagine a city overtaken by these “fires” of God meeting in every neighborhood. Out of the cathedrals and into the world. A simple, relational, movement of people hungry for Jesus and bent on being his hands and feet to the people of this world. That is what we felt the Lord put on our hearts. A network of simple churches planted all over the city. Want more? The links in the next column are there to take you to a deeper understanding of what we are all about. Happy reading.
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The Vision
What’s at the heart of this whole thing? Why do we really exist? It’s just about Jesus. Read our vision prayer here...
The Mechanism
How do we live this out? What is the structure? We just want to plant simple churches in every neighborhood. More info?
More info and FAQ’s
Still need more? Got further questions? Some of them might be addressed here.
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The Character Traits
What characterizes us as we live this vision our? What are our values? Read about it here.
The Leadership
How is something so scattered organized, encouraged and served? Click here for more.
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