Equipping People for Kingdom Work
Backyard church is a house church movement that is grounded in prayer and the Word of God and reliant on the Holy Spirit’s lead.
Our desire is to be open-handed in all we do and share our resources with you. Many people are looking for a move away from traditional church models and we want to share the approach we are convicted about in case it is helpful to you and your community.
We begin in prayer. We are praying for the neighborhoods in our community. Our prayer is that God would open doors for new churches to be planted in the neighborhoods in our area. As we pray over a list of the neighborhoods in our city, we are looking for God to grant us clarity on which neighborhoods to focus on first. We will visit those neighborhoods: walk them, jog them, meet residents and pray with those who are receptive. We are praying over the homes in the neighborhoods as we pass by. We are praying for “people of peace” (Luke 10:6) who can help us make inroads into the neighborhood.
When we find a person interested in the good news about Jesus, we will invite them to our BYC and connect with them. We will invite them into a disciple-making group to learn to follow Jesus. If they are already a Christian or become a Christian in the process we will engage with them in prayer about beginning a new BYC in their neighborhood.
If they believe, through prayer and study, that God is calling them to start a new BYC, we will have them intern at ours for one month to see how we lead BYC. During that month they will begin praying for their neighbors and potential people to invite. When they are ready and believe God is ready for them to begin a new BYC one of our leadership team people will go with them to get them started. We will also get them into a leadership training group to continue training them in ministry skills to effectively reach their neighborhood while also having them continue in the disciple-making cohort (a 6 month commitment).
If you are interested in starting a BYC in your neighborhood please let us know. We would love to talk with you about that!