Above all, our desire is for people to genuinely love Jesus Himself. Often, we find ourselves drawn to sermons, ministries, books, and community, but do we truly cherish God above all else? A church can't thrive if its members aren't regularly encountering and delighting in God. Loving God with all our being is our highest priority as leaders.

To cultivate a culture of personal connection with God, we've structured our approach. Rather than relying solely on Sunday sermons for spiritual nourishment, we encourage everyone to spend daily time with God, following a shared reading plan throughout the week. This daily engagement with Scripture and prayer is where they're spiritually fed. Then, when we come together, instead of a sermon, we have discussions led by church leaders based on the week's readings. Everyone is expected to contribute insights gained from their personal time with God, fostering a community deeply devoted to Scripture.

This daily Bible reading also serves as a safeguard against false teachings. When everyone regularly immerses themselves in God's Word, they become less susceptible to deception. By equipping our members with the habit of daily Bible reading, we're strengthening them against potential falsehoods and ensuring they stay rooted in the truth.

If you had no history or exposure to the church at all other than reading the New Testament, what would you expect to see if someone invited you to a gathering of a church? We've thought about this question a lot. Based on the more than fifty "one another" commands in the New Testament, we would expect to see much love among Christians when they gather. Based on how Paul describes the church in 1 Corinthians and Ephesians, we expect to see people contributing their spiritual gifts. We'd picture people living like a true family inside and outside of the gathering. We'd expect to see much smiling, hugging, crying together, shared meals, and a lot of life connection throughout the week. We wouldn't picture a huge auditorium or rows or a stage or everyone being quiet while just a few people lead. We're not saying it's wrong to do this. But the question is: do our structures undermine or contribute towards God's commands in Scripture, especially the ones that are emphasized and repeated? And if there are more than 50 "one another" commands that call us to a radical, intimate, deep love for each other, why would the thing we call "church" be something where we don't interact with or know each other?

In order to help us truly love each other, we're committed to meeting in small groups in a home. We've seen that once we get to 30 or 50 or 100 people in a church it becomes increasingly more difficult to live like a family, truly know each other, carry each other's burdens, and build each other up. Many churches will do this in the form of a community group, which is great. But far too often people view a Sunday morning big gathering as the primary context of church, and the community group as optional. For us, we want everyone to opt into sharing life, and therefore the primary context of church for them is a spiritual family in the form of a small group.

Everyone is supposed to share the gospel and take care of each other spiritually. But real discipleship is not easy. It means getting to know someone, having tough talks about sin, working through conflicts, and being there when life gets tough.

Sometimes, we replace true discipleship with programs. For example, if a married couple is struggling, we might suggest they read a book or join a class. But what they really need is someone experienced to walk alongside them through life's challenges. While programs can be helpful, they shouldn't replace real discipleship.

In our church, leaders don't have to disciple everyone; they focus on a few and make sure those few disciple others too. Even new believers are encouraged to share their faith and learn how to care for others.

We want everyone in our church to join small, close-knit groups, so there's no hiding. Each person's life is intertwined with others, and everyone is expected to be honest and grow together.

Discipleship means taking care of someone spiritually and being involved in each other's lives. It's not just about meeting for coffee once a week; it's about spending time together and learning from each other's lives.

Paul said “to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good” (1 Cor 12:7). He goes on to list many different types of gifts that the Spirit gives to believers for the sake of the body. Then he explains how every part of the body is needed and that we must be careful not to develop a mindset that some gifts are more necessary than others. But is that truly how we function in the church? Does every single believer in a church realize that they are just as needed and important as anyone else in the church? Or do they tend to think that the preacher and worship leader is more important?

We have intentionally structured things to create space for everyone in the body to contribute in the gatherings and in everyday life. Church leaders have an important calling to lead and shepherd, but it doesn’t mean that they are the only voice that needs to be heard. We don’t have long monologue sermons in our house gatherings because we don’t want any one person to dominate things. Our leaders lead the discussion in our gatherings, and a big task for them is to draw people into utilizing their gifts. Leaders shouldn’t be dominating the discussion.

This is one of the reasons we have smaller churches. If there are 40 to 50 people in the gathering, it’s easy for half the group to shrink back and not contribute. The church leaders should also look out for gifts in the people in their church and give them opportunities to lead and grow in those gifts. Have people use what they’re passionate about and gifted in.

For example, If someone is hospitable, encourage them to have people over in their home. If someone is administratively gifted, have them organize a retreat. Someone might have the gift of encouragement - ask them to support someone who is down. If someone can explain the Bible well, ask them to meditate on a passage and share what God taught them on Sunday. In conversation with people in your church, affirm gifts that you see and encourage people to use them.

So many churches begin small, relational, and discipleship-focused but cannot maintain those characteristics as numeric growth happens. Before they know it, they have become more and more of a machine rather than a healthy family. Meeting in homes sounds excellent, but what happens as the church grows? How does a church adapt as the Lord adds to their number? One word: Multiplication. The real fruit of an apple tree isn't apples but more apple trees. The real fruit of a strong leader is not followers but more strong leaders. The real fruit of a healthy church is not congregants but more healthy churches. God has designed the world to reproduce and multiplies. The apple trees that can't multiply are ones that are genetically modified. We have too many GMO churches and not enough reproducing churches. ​

We multiply to preserve the healthy number of people in a church and prioritize God's mission over our comfort. To be able to multiply effectively, we must structure our churches in a way that is reproducible. Churches, where one or two people are always on the stage leading with big budgets and amazing programs, are not easily reproducible. We place a high premium on leadership development because we are preparing to multiply each year and need new leadership ready to step up and take care of the new believers that have been added. Our leaders, while trying to lead well, also have to be mindful not to make people too dependent on them so that when it comes time to multiply, people have no problem going with a different leader. Effective leadership always involves allowing others to have the opportunity to lead, and it is imperative in the multiplication process.

Each leader is developing a leader-in-training. When multiplication happens, we want a healthy critical mass of at least 5 or 6 people to start a new church. It's helpful to be this size to have a community to bring people into.​

Multiplication is not something we force, but we do push for it. Rarely does a church go, "we want to multiply, and we're ready!" Almost everyone says, "We don't want to multiply yet." It hurts. But it will never happen if we don't aim to multiply regularly. It's like your English teacher assigns you a 7-page paper. You ask, "When is it due?" He says, "Whenever." You're not going to write that paper. You're going to put it off. Multiplication is one of those things we will put off. Before you know it, you will lose the thing you love. At that size, there is not the same level of intimacy and care. We only experience amazing family life because churches have multiplied before us, and we want to continue in this practice.

What does "regular" multiplication mean? It means that as a wider church family, we are constantly evaluating whether it is time to multiply. We have target dates, but they are goals. We won't force multiplication if there are just five people in an existing house church.

When things started getting out of control in Corinth, Paul reminded them of how he started the church. In 1 Corinthians 2, he states that he intentionally held back from using “eloquence”, “human wisdom”, and “wise and persuasive words” when starting and building the church there. He didn’t want their walk with Jesus to be built on anything other than the power of the gospel message of Jesus. He then goes on to describe himself in chapter three as a wise, master builder in how he approached building the church. Likewise, Jesus was unwilling to draw people with anything other than Himself. In John 6, people are coming after Jesus because He provided them with food. Jesus refused to give them physical food anymore to make sure that only those who really want to follow Jesus will remain. Are we willing to do the same in our churches? Are we willing to strip everything away to make sure people are being drawn by Jesus and Jesus alone?​

We try to be very intentional that we aren’t drawing people in with anything other than Jesus. There is no impressive service. The church isn’t built on a well-known leader. We don’t have any paid staff or attractive programs. The main thing you get in joining Simply Church is Jesus and belonging to the community of believers He has formed. If you don’t want Jesus and/or don’t want a deep Jesus community then you won’t want to be in this church. Where many church conferences are about how to create impressive strategies to draw people and build the church numerically, we are resolved to not offer anything other than Jesus and His people. Jesus will build His church. Paul knew it. Jesus knew it. Let’s not do anything different.

Communion is essential to the community of faith. At Simply Church, we celebrate communion every week and we want to encourage everyone to uphold this celebration as much as possible. While doing so, we keep in mind two things.

First, communion is sacred. We want to treat it with seriousness. We take on a heart posture of reverence. We should not be casual about the act.

Second, communion should be happening a lot –we see this in Scripture. We pursue devotion to breaking bread. Communion doesn’t need to occur only in a specific setting with certain people administering it.

Communion is for believers. We don’t rush into taking communion. For example, we see in Corinth that there was disunity and deep sin issues. Some people went hungry while others we stuffing themselves. It seems there was a lack of concern for the body as they took it, which is a big issue. When we take communion, we acknowledge that we’re about to take the body and blood of Christ. We want to examine our lives and see if there’s anyone we’ve offended or are not right with.

Baptism is Commanded - Acts 2:37-38

"Peter’s words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, “Brothers, what should we do?”

Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

We see here that Baptism is commanded as part of our conversion. ​

We see a good explanation of baptism in 1 Peter 3:20-21.

"Those who disobeyed God long ago when God waited patiently while Noah was building his boat. Only eight people were saved from drowning in that terrible flood. And that water is a picture of baptism, which now saves you, not by removing dirt from your body, but as a response to God from a clean conscience. It is effective because of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.."

Peter is saying that baptism saves you, but it's not that the water somehow washes away your sins. Look at the reference to Noah. God's destruction was coming upon the world, yet who was saved from God's destruction? It was those eight people that climbed into the ark. In the same way, Jesus is now our ark. My baptism is a baptism into Jesus. It's like me climbing into Christ and saying, "I'm one with him now. I'm safe now because I'm in Jesus. I'm in Christ. I climbed into the ark, and he does all of the work—I'm in there." Baptism is the picture of you climbing in and becoming one with Christ.

Baptism can be done in a variety of ways, but we often encourage people to do it in home churches. We don't want it to be something where people have to wait for just the right situation to get baptized. It's ultimately up to the leader of the family church to decide how they will do it. Before someone gets baptized, that person and his/her discipler should talk through baptism with their house church leaders. Baptism shouldn't happen only in a big service, it should be held in reverence and immediately as someone is ready to put their faith in Christ. It's fine to baptize someone in a baptismal, a swimming pool, the ocean, a bathtub, or any other body of water. The Bible seems to leave freedom for where baptism happens. The reverence comes from understanding the weightiness of the public declaration of a lifelong commitment and is expressed through a heart posture of awe and gratitude for new life.