Spark is also an emerging network of communities that gather in family-room-sized groups (often in homes but not always). Our network intends to gather people from across denominational, cultural, and doctrinal lines and boundaries - so long as we’re aligned on the essentials of the Christian faith.
We also love, value, and link arms with all different expressions of The Church as long as they too are orthodox in their beliefs. This includes traditional churches, house churches, micro-churches, para-church ministries, college gatherings, and more.
We strongly believe that God is calling certain people in our present time to be part of an expression of community life that aims to look to the early Church’s example for its primary insights about body life. The desire of the Spark Network is that all people in the communities that meet, would participate in the life and gathering of the community, as we mature in our apprenticeship to Jesus and live intentionally in the world.
Many of the accounts in the book of Acts describe believers gathering differently than what most of us experience today. We see in Acts followers of Jesus who know each other intimately, give themselves over fully to the apostle's doctrines, and share their lives generously and honestly with one another, most often around the table, from house to house.
We believe this family-like life begins to happen as the table is introduced into our regular rhythms. The Lord's Supper (also called the ‘Love Feast’ in Jude 1:12) is a practice that Jesus himself instituted, and that we are encouraged to practice together each week - a practice of taking communion as part of a full meal and feast with other believers. We see it as necessary for members of God's family to gather together around the table as often as possible, to break bread, fellowship, pray, give themselves to the sound teaching of the apostles, and follow Jesus in all of life.
An ancient way of gathering as a community, in homes, and around the table.
So What Is A Spark Community?
A committed Spirit-filled group pursuing the presence of God as the source of life and joy and the only pathway to true revival, rooted community life, deep spiritual formation, and the renewal of the world around us.
The 4 Marks
As we faithfully study scripture, we feel there are 4 things that can’t be avoided that we want to see mark our groups, because scripture appears to show them as mandatory elements in the life of a Christian community:
Family: Community is the gathered family of God and is a group where you belong, are deeply known, and are needed to contribute your gifts in order for the full body of Christ to be expressed properly to the outside world.
Scripture: Community is rooted in the ancient ways. We are committed to allowing the Bible alone to be the first thing to build up or tear down paradigms. Then to glean wisdom from the historic church in the areas that fit the Biblical blueprint.
Discipleship: In community we are to follow Jesus fully, obey his commands, walk the way he walked, and apprentice to his life. We intentionally seek to mature and grow by the power of the Spirit personally and within a community setting.
Mission: In community we pursue the mission of God - the restoration of the whole earth - especially the drawing of his people back to himself through his power. We aim to expect people to be saved and the physical world and it’s systems to be renewed.
What happens on Sunday in a Spark Community?
Bread & Cup
Believers have been taking the bread and cup together for centuries as a vital part of their coming together and we practice doing the same. Each week we gather together and take the Lord’s supper as a community as an embodied remembrance of God’s grace in our lives and His presence in our communities.
Feasting
The early believers did not just share a piece of cracker and sip of wine together; they broke bread together and lived life together around the table. We see eating together as a necessary practice for the family of God. This is most often the place we move from individuals who follow Jesus to a community who follow Jesus together. When we gather in homes we have a family potluck-style meal.
Scripture
Reading the Scriptures together is essential to our following of Jesus together. Each week we come together we will read different passages together and sit under the authority of the Scriptures as a community. We will also be given to reading the Scriptures together through the rest of the week in our own homes.
Praise and Prayer
Prayer may not come as naturally, but it is as essential. It’s communing with and relating to God, receiving from God, hearing from God, and asking of God to move. We long for our communities to be places of prayer and praise. This may look like individuals praying over one another, reciting a historical prayer from Jesus or the early church, or singing songs in worship of Jesus together and will often include all three.
Teaching
We do believe that teaching and preaching are important, and while most of that will happen in our monthly network-wide gathering, we will also have time of teaching during our regular community gatherings 3x/month. The teaching will be formed by The Spirit from the previous week’s Scripture reading and will be a brief time of exhortation.
Blessings
We conclude our time together by reading a blessing over the community, either from the Scriptures or from the rich history of believers we have access to. This is intended to conclude our time spent gathering together in this way and bless the community as we move back into the world to live on mission empowered by God’s presence.
When do we meet?
Our rhythm of gathering as a community revolves around meeting week to week in homes across the city, and then on the first Sunday of each month, all communities gather together. We gather primarily on Sunday to orient our weeks and lives towards Jesus in worship, fellowship, learning, and rest. Throughout the week, our men meet for a weekly time of prayer and discovery in the Word, called a “Midrash”.
All Spark Network communities gather together on the first Sunday of the month. Locations for this meeting can vary, so check out our Instagram page @spark.prayer for announcements about location.
The other 3 Sunday’s of the month we scatter throughout the city into our communities. This is our primary way of expressing Christ. Each community has the freedom to gather at what time and location they believe is best each Sunday.
Midweek Midrash is our time for men to intentionally pursue stepping further into the role of spiritual leader in their home. They do this by gathering as men for prayer, bible study, debate, encouragement, and discovery of truth.
We believe Jesus is for everyone, but our communities are not…
You might be thinking “did I really just read what I think I read?!”
This may come as an appalling statement to some who are used to more recent cultural expressions of community, but as Jesus did, we ask ourselves and others to count the costs of following Him, to be all-in on the community, to set aside personal preferences, and to surrender our will to Jesus. Scripture tells us that a little leaven leavens the whole loaf. In the same way, people with wrong motives, self-centered preferences, bitterness with the Bride of Christ, apathy and passivity, or simply a desire to live a comfortable life while hiding “in the back row”, will become a distraction from those who are trying to live wholehearted and fully devoted lives to God and one another.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book Life Together: “Those who love their dream of a Christian community more than they love the Christian community itself become destroyers of that Christian community even though their personal intentions may be ever so honest, earnest and sacrificial. God hates this wishful dreaming because it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. Those who dream of this idolized community demand that it be fulfilled by God, by others, and by themselves. They enter the community of Christians with their demands set up by their own law and judge one another and God accordingly.”
We aim to be people who pursue not our own preferences, dreams, ideals, and wishful outcomes but rather cherish what God has placed right in front of us.
Community is not meant for the fulfillment of our self-centered preferences but rather is meant as the setting that refines us, sharpens us, grows us, and challenges us to become more like our king, Jesus.
If you’re not ready for that kind of community life, commitment, and sacrifice, that’s OK. There is zero condemnation, judgment, or bitterness from us - this community just probably isn’t for you. At least not yet.
Explore this page to learn more about what we believe and expect from ourselves and those who call this community home.
How do I join a community?
The best way to join and experience a community gathering is to first fill out the form below, and we’ll connect you with a leader of a gathering in your area so that you can get to know one another and decide if there’s a mutual fit! We can’t wait to meet you!