Stephanie Gambrill Streckfus's Page

My name is Stephanie, I am 28 years old and have been married for 5 years.  I have grown up in the church but have always felt something was off with how we did church.  My favorite scripture was Mathew 20:16, So the last shall be first and the first shall be last.  Also, Mathew 20: 26-27, Not so with you.  Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave.  I always wondered how there were so many scriptures with similar themes, yet this was not shown in the churches I grew up in.  People clawed their way to the top and wanted high position in the church.  The higher you were in ministry, the holier you appeared to the congregation.  It never made sense to me.

I was introduced to the idea of simple church a few years ago when I read Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola.  A light bulb went off in my head and I was so excited I felt like my heart would burst.  It all made sense and it was so stink'n simple it made me crazy!  It took time for me to gain the guts to leave our church and even longer to start our own church.  My husband was not on board initially which is understandable, this is so radically different from anything we were told.  I gave him time to transition out of our old church, about a year.  We then started attending another simple church started by our old youth pastors.  This was an awesome group but unfortunately they stopped meeting a couple of months after we started attending due to busy schedules.  I couldn't find any other simple churches locally, so we started our own. 

Our church has been slow starting.  I know a lot of Christians but not many that understand the concept.  I also have been careful not to push it down anyone's throats knowing that it is God's job to change people's hearts.  One lady has started coming from a craigslist post I created and she has been a very loyal part of our church ever since.  We need more people though, and would love to get ideas of how to do this.  We are currently only running 5 people, counting my husband and I.  I know there are people who will identify with the simple church model, but I'm not sure how to present it to people to make them feel comfortable coming.  I'm also not sure how to best advertise around my community to make people aware that we are here.  If anyone has any suggestions I'd appreciate them.