“Do not despise these small beginnings, for the Lord rejoices to see the work begin, to see the plumb line in Zerubbabel’s hand.” - Zechariah 4:10

This story begins long before our “yes”, but it is the yes that brought us here. We began to gather with a few in our living rooms, rotating house to house and holding worship nights in October of 2022. A swirl of dreams, visions and encounters had drawn us up and out of the prospective caves we’d been in to begin to explore what authentically living the Gospel could look like. Some of us had been in transition for months, some for years, all searching to find a pursuit of Jesus that felt more authentic to the yearnings of our hearts and what we saw modeled in the New Testament.

All of us in those first rooms had been “in ministry” within the four walls of a church for years or decades and now found ourselves on the other side of burn out filled with questions and more than anything…pain. The “yes” was difficult as it came at the cost of many things we held close to our hearts. Friendships, reputations, influence, financial stability, “career paths” - things we had to lay at the feet of Jesus. The areas we had placed our identities in were held up to the light, and much got stripped away.

The truth is, we didn’t know what we were doing. In fact, our intentionally nameless group began to jokingly refer to ourselves as WAWD. What. Are. We. Doing. We had just two things in mind as we launched into the unknown… 1. Love and lead our families and 2. Discover what it means to pursue Jesus and the things He loves with no strings attached. “Kingdom Over Everything” became our guide post as God unraveled what we thought we knew.

The first few months were both powerful and painful, and we found ourselves pulled into what felt like a vortex of supernatural activity alongside personal and corporate reflection and transformation unlike anything we’d ever seen. We began to see the five fold nature of Jesus and His gifts to the body. We began to truly value each other’s voices as integral and necessary components to what God wanted to build on the earth. We saw clearly that no one person could express it all. It was challenging and freeing.

As time went on, we slowly began to invite people into meeting with us and into what we came to “lovingly” call The Process. We asked God to meet us in the middle of “clearing out the clutter”, and He was faithful to answer. We re-examined, challenged and tested our beliefs and traditions, and our small group of friends had dreams and visions that shaped our community as we began to be pulled into deeply authentic and vulnerable relationships with each other and with Jesus. This was a time of triumph and tears…we lived closely with each other and learned a type of relationship we hadn’t previously known.

We were beginning to understand. This was the “fellowship” or “Koinonia” we had heard about, thought we understood, but never had experienced. We learned to be available and to forgive, to celebrate and to mourn. We learned to be harmless and wise, and ultimately, we began to truly learn how to love.

We had lost our desire for stages, notoriety and organizational stability by the time 2023 came. It was a necessary stripping that produced something pure. Something that has healed and changed us profoundly. As the year moved on, new people joined our home gathering community and found themselves invited into this same process. The root need that was revealed in each person was the deep, innate desire to be with people with whom they could be really raw. This meant giving space for good days and bad days, room to wrestle through Scripture and life, and time to eat and talk with other people moving in a similar direction. It was and is messy…raw…and most importantly, real.

We established a rhythm of eating together followed by worship and some teaching/sharing. Everyone brought a piece to the conversation and our meetings often ran for 11 or 12 hours before everyone left after midnight.

…And oh, how people grew!

We had never seen such fruit in peoples lives…people were becoming personally empowered and having their perspectives shifted from loving their small group to loving and acting on that love in their every day life. As people entered into relationship with the community, people were being sovereignly met by God in their homes, cars, workplaces, gyms… Scripture was being opened to us all.  No question was off-limits and no conversation too intense or elementary. The gathering grew from 6 to 35 over the course of that year, and we recognized that many of the people who had been drawn into what we were doing were leaders themselves.

As we recognized the growing need for empowering and forwarding leaders, we began hosting leaders meetings once a month in late 2023. It was amazing to see what beautiful things could happen in a room full of leaders who were driven by a passion to love and to forward others. The humility and love demonstrated in that room was palpable, and everyone gave and received organically.

In January 2024 we began to feel like it was time to “build the network”. We had intentionally kept all of our gatherings and worship nights closed to the public and without a name for a year and a half, but now we were feeling the pull to connect more broadly and open up.

The mission was to connect with those who felt drawn to each other…to build along side each other…to experience relational authority and submission in love with each other and to eventually demonstrate what a healthy group of leaders could look like.

And here we are.

Our story belongs to those who have helped mentor and forward us, to those who walk alongside us, to those who have joined in this journey, to those we serve and ultimately God, the Orchestrator of it all.

I was told once that the higher the plumb line gets from the ground, the harder it is to establish center on the cornerstone. The days of “small beginnings” are the most crucial moments of all our stories. They’re the days we tear it all down to go low…to get close to the ground and establish the plumb line before we build.

Whoever you are and wherever you are, welcome to our story…and may you find your own, built strong on the Cornerstone.