Church Without Walls...

Walls (like those in a church facility) are there to do two things:  keep certain things out and keep certain things in.  What if we had been gathered together and uniquely designed to be a church, not just without physical walls, but without institutional walls, either?  We began as a church committed to removing any unnecessary barriers for people to come into a relationship with God and His family, but what about those unnecessary barriers that keep us in the “holy huddle” once we do have that relationship?  We were already set up to become a church without walls not just in a material sense, but in a missional sense.

Lighthouse Community Church, the Church Without Walls, has adopted these 4 Commitments:

1.  We will be inwardly strong, but outwardly focused.
We’ve become convinced it’s really not “church” if it’s not engaged in the life of the community through ministry and service to others.  In fact, we believe Christ-followers can learn through good instruction, but they can grow only through service and ministry.

2.  We will integrate good deeds (show) and good news (tell) into our lives.
“Showing” to us means identifying the unmet needs in our community and either start ministries to meet those needs, or partner with existing ministries or human-service agencies that are already accomplishing a shared mission and could use our help.  “Telling” to us means doing our part by engaging people in meaningful relationships that lead to sharing our grace stories.  By doing this, we are doing our part to move all people in a positive direction wherever they are on the continuum of being deeply antagonistic about the claims of Christ, all the way to becoming a ministry-minded, reproducing leader.

3.  We will value impact and influence in our community more than attendance.
 We see our effectiveness in our mission measured not by what happens inside the church but rather by the impact the people of the church have on their communities.  And so we’ve begun to imagine helping people see how God can get into the life they already have instead of wasting those relational and ministry opportunities for a life of church programs. 

4.  We will become the “soul” of our community.
This concept comes from the words of a 2nd century Christ-follower who wrote in a letter: “As the soul is to the body, so Christians [are] to the world.”  We want to position ourselves through service so that everyone in our community knows someone who follows Jesus, so that when the storms of life come, we are already there to be the presence of God.  The haunting questions that inspire us in this are “If we picked up and left, how would the city feel?  Would our city weep?  Would anybody even notice?  Would anybody care?”