Love. Nothing else.
Jesus focused on love as THE identifier of those who follow Him. So we are not an organization filled with programs and methods. We focus on loving one another well and loving others well. No special ministries, no buildings. Just Jesus and His love given to and through us. Nothing else.
House to House
Man made methods and visions with the greatest intentions still isn’t the heartbeat of the Father. The church is designed to thrive in small, relational environments focused on transparency and encouragement to motivate one another to love and good deeds. We aren’t waiting for a location to build a building to gather and mass produce the gospel. With a method or a building we end up creating systems and processes to deal with the masses but Hebrews 10 tells us to “consider”(be concerned about or think about) ways to motivate one another. In house to house environments the focus is on relational transparency with one another and holy intimacy our Heavenly Father.
Relationships are the design
Discipleship and Evangelism aren’t things we do but these thing should be the church’s very identity. We are a people who believe that God has placed us in our schools, jobs, neighborhoods and families with highly intentional purpose. We focus on our intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father and out of that spills a love to others that reaches, evangelizes and disciples. This sounds passive when compared to man made strategies, but in fact it is Jesus’s design to reach the world.
Total dependence
We are called to a life that is peculiar, different, and set apart. This life is hidden in Jesus, so we embrace suffering for His name’s sake because our lives are not our own but are totally dependent upon Him. We devote ourselves to prayer, worship, communion, listening, reading the Bible, and intimate moments with Him. Because of that, Sundays are secondary. Life is hard and so much happens outside of 90 minutes on a Sunday morning. We declare our dependance on Him TOGETHER, so we live life TOGETHER to encourage one another to hold fast to our faith.
Nothing mass produced
Jesus spent 3 plus years with just 12 men in an intimate setting. So we’ve looked at our house churches and felt we must keep it small while growing. We aren’t dependent on any one person’s gifting but believe God is sending those people to us with the gifting He has designed for us. We are not a small church waiting to get a building but a community of believers seeking to use their gifts to reach the world through intimate relationships. So Selah Memphis is a network of house churches focused staying small but growing by starting new house churches.
None have need
The first descriptions of the early church tell of a group of people who lived life open handed. God gives gifts to each believer but those gifts aren’t meant for the individual. God gives us gifts for each other. So if we all live life in full surrender, each person in the body of believers has their needs met. Living life in full surrender to God, with a heart willing to give to the point of absurdity creates a community where none have need.