About

We love God, love God’s purpose, and love God’s people. We seek to be the testimony of Jesus and give joyful witness to God’s full salvation.

“In Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forever.” –Psalm 16:11

Our Meetings

What kind of church are we?

While standing on the shoulders of those who have gone before us, we trace our genealogy through the ministry of Watchman Nee. The following points, while not exhaustive, highlight a number of our distinctive convictions and aspirations.

1. We are a New Testament church—we hold the descriptive patterns of church life in the New Testament to be inspired and normative.

2. We are a historic church—we draw from the deep currents of the church fathers, are anchored in the great truths of the Reformation, and embody certain mystic, charismatic, and evangelical elements in our practice.

3. We are a gospel-centered church—we live for the gospel and we live from the gospel in all its fullness. The gospel is for everyone, Christians included, and it is much more than forgiveness or going to heaven.

4. We are an inclusive church—we value the oneness of the Body of Christ above all else and receive all believers without passing judgments on their considered opinions on matters that extend beyond the orthodox and fundamental doctrines of the faith.

5. We are a living church—we believe that truth is for experience and experience requires knowing the life-giving Spirit. Out of the experience of life, each believer develops a unique and indispensable function within, and for the sake of, the whole Body of Christ. In our church gatherings, we value and prioritize the universal priesthood of all believers to minister the Spirit and the Word through praise and prophecy, teaching and testimony, according to Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians 14.

6. We are a connected church—the church is our living not just our meeting on Sunday. We are committed to being in each others’ lives, “day by day and house to house,” to be known, loved, cared for, supported, built up, and mobilized. Our connections are locally deep and internationally wide, as we exist not as an independent congregation but as part of an interdependent worldwide communion.

7. We are a recovered church—we aspire to cooperate with the Lord in his present move to renew, reform, and revive his work among his people. We believe that the church moves forward by looking back to and digging deeper into its sources to recover what has been lost or forgotten. We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. And we stand shoulder to shoulder with those who carry the torch of the church’s testimony in our own times.

Our Faith

Serving Baylor Students with the Gospel

We host a weekly chapel and Bible study for Baylor University Students.

College Students

Meet our Leadership

“Remember the ones leading you, who have spoken to you the word of God; and considering the issue of their manner of life, imitate their faith.” –Hebrews 13:7

Bill Furrer

(254) 715-8176

Johnny Bhojwani

(214) 924-7435

Rodney Phillips

60+ years

The local church in Waco was established in the early 1960s and was reconstituted in 2012.

50 members

We are a diverse and multi-generational congregation that loves and welcomes all people.

1 Vision

We are united by a shared vision of God’s eternal purpose for the church (Eph. 3:9-11).

FAQs

Why is your name “the local church in Waco”?

We believe that the New Testament pattern of referring to the churches by the name of the city in which they exist is instructive as to the proper basis for the establishment of churches (e.g. Acts 8:1; 13:1; Rev. 1:11). The term “local church” is not our name but a description of the local nature and expression of the one universal church. To say “one church, one city” is a profound and inclusive affirmation about the wide array of Christian congregations in any city. For those who meet with us, we require no confessional affirmations beyond the common faith for full membership or participation in the Lord’s table. We follow Paul’s instruction to welcome believers who differ from us without despising them or passing judgment on their opinions about secondary matters (Rom 14). We hold to the saying, “Let us have unity in variety and variety without conformity.”

What is prophesying?

When we refer to prophesying, such as on Sunday mornings, we have in mind Paul’s use of it in 1 Corinthians 14. There he says that “all can prophecy” (v. 31) for people’s encouragement and consolation and for the church’s building up (vv. 3-4). Prophesying in this context does not refer to predicting the future; rather, it denotes speaking for Christ and speaking forth Christ according to our understanding and experience of God’s revealed will in Scripture. It is more truth-oriented than a testimony and more Spirit-inspired than a teaching. It is a central feature of our gatherings, which we encourage each believer to pursue and practice as they are led and able to.

What is pray-reading?

Pray-reading is a way of effectively engaging, applying, and enjoying the Spirit through the Word. There are many ways to pray-read—personal, corporate, contemplative, expressive, etc. The goal is to experience God’s Word in its living and operative essence as life and light, fire and water, breath and wind. By combining prayer and reading, we assimilate the truth so that it becomes our spiritual constitution which enables us to live Christ. As Jerome, in the 4th century, recommended, “Let there be study of the Divine Word, mingled with prayer.” The early church and then the monastics called this practice lectio divina (divine reading). Pray-reading is not a replacement to ordinary reading of Scripture or rigorous study but their necessary complement. The mystic and scholastic, the head and the heart, must be balanced in our handling of God’s Word if we are not to end up in extremes.

Why do you say “amen”?

“Amen” is the biblical, audible response to the proclamation of God’s word (1 Chron. 16:36; 1 Cor. 14:16; 2 Cor. 1:20). It means “firm, steadfast, let it be so.” It is a sign of agreement and is a response-seeking and self-involving utterance. It signals that the community bears witness to the word being spoken and is open, receptive, and submissive to God’s word. It indicates that we desire God’s word to be realized both in our lives and in the world. Saying amen is a vocal form of engagement with the speaker so that the message becomes a communal event animated by the Spirit. Christian gatherings are not lectures; they are festal celebrations of the new covenant (Psa 42:4), characterized by joyful noise (Psa 100:1) and glad response. Since God’s word is living and active (Heb 4:12), we encourage a living and active, though appropriate, response from the congregation when this word is received, understood, and applied by the Holy Spirit. “Amen” is our living (not formal), heartfelt (not casual), and frequent (not merely concluding) response to God’s speaking.

What is the Lord’s recovery?

The Lord’s recovery is our way of referring to the Holy Spirit’s work to reform and revive the church according to the revelation in the New Testament. The term encompasses the domains of biblical truth, spiritual experience, and church practice. The Lord’s recovery is not our name or restricted to our usage but captures a principle of God’s work in salvation history: God moves in every age and works again and again to renew, reform, and revive His church. We see this principle in the Old Testament in Israel’s return from captivity to Jerusalem to rebuild the destroyed temple. As Isaiah 11:11 says, “In that day the Lord, by His hand for the second time again, will recover the remnant of His people.” It is our conviction that the church moves forward by looking backward to its original pattern.