Vision: What We Do

Our vision is to establish sustainable, thriving, and diverse disciple-making communities and to equip leaders to mobilize and release believers. Empowered by the Holy Spirit, these communities live out Christ’s mission, ensuring that every person has multiple opportunities to hear the Gospel.

We dream of a network of micro churches in every neighborhood of Chicago and overflowing into the suburbs, midwest, and beyond.

Our passion is to help followers of Christ develop and fulfill their primary calling to make disciples in every aspect of their lives. We firmly believe that every individual has a unique calling and purpose in life for God’s kingdom, and we want to empower every follower of Christ to discover, live out, and be mobilized in that calling through disciple-making within the context of their local church or in a new expressions of church. We are committed to creating spaces for all, not only to be welcomed, but accepted and needed in the Kingdom of God.

Herewithin mobilizes through four streams:

  • Equipping church leaders

  • Empowering everyday follower’s of Christ

  • Training worship leaders

  • Providing retreats for ministry leaders

Whether you're a pastor, a lay leader, or just someone who wants to make a difference in your community, you are our vision.

Mission: Why We Do It

We exist to create spaces of hope by equipping and empowering followers of Christ to plant the Gospel in their neighborhoods to join God’s mission of redemption, reconciliation, and restoration.

We believe that the Church is more than just a collection of individuals, but rather an embodied community of believers who are called to love and serve one another in the name of Jesus Christ. We believe that the presence of God is manifest in the community of believers and that the Holy Spirit is actively at work within us (1 John 4:13).

We believe that as members of the Church, we are called to embody the love of Christ in all that we do. As it says in 1 John 4:17:

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

We believe that the Church is not just a building, but a living, breathing body of believers, and that as we come together in community, we can experience the fullness of God's presence and power. As set forth by the New Testament church, we believe the Church goes beyond the prevailing model. A Church is a gathering centered on community, teaching of the way of Christ, communion, and prayer (Acts 2:42).

At Herewithin, we see the function of church being confused for the church itself. It is because of that we define church as being:

  1. Immersed in the Holy Spirit

  2. Only existing in the presence of the Kingdom of God

  3. The Identity of the church is mission

  4. Marked by unity

Ultimately, our goal is to see the Church fulfill its ultimate destiny, as described in Revelation 21:3: "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God."

We believe that as we live out our calling to plant churches and equip leaders, we are participating in God's plan to build his Kingdom on earth and to bring his presence and love to all people here-within.

Values: How We Do It

At Herewithin, we make decisions and operate our of three core values. These values inform our methods and practices. These values are collaboration, contextualization, and cohesion.

Collaboration. Elevating collaboration requires high freedom and clear vision. We are a mission hub that partners with other ministries and churches that are friends on mission. It is because of this that our community follows Romans 10:9 and embraces everyone, placing no restrictions on leadership roles due to race, gender, sexual orientation, or physical ability, for those who acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord (Colossians 3:11).

Collaboration requires us to be uncomfortable for the sake of the Gospel, so that no one is left out, and that is okay.

You can find helpful reads on our bibliography.

Contextualization. Our value of contextualization is about cultivating deeply rooted environments that bilingual: fluent in the language of culture and fluent in the language of the Kingdom of God (1 Cor. 9:19-23).

We take scripture too seriously to take it too literally. Rather, we avoid the fundamentalist tendency to flatten scripture and instead dialogue with the richness of scripture and the multiple faithful readings of the Word. It is because of this that we won’t use the Bible against anyone but practice our faith in a way that engages God’s mission of redemption, reconciliation, and restoration for all people.

Cohesion. The Church operates best when all the parts of the body fit together (1 Cor. 12:12-27). It is because of this that the labor of ministry comes out of rest.

For Herewithin, cohesion means that the work in our communities speaks against injustice and makes room for the full belonging of all. This involves inclusion of the marginalized voices often looked over by the Church.

We lean into the words of one of the founders of our Restoration Movement, Barton Stone, when he wrote, “If our faith be ever so imperfect, and blended with error, yet if it leads us to do the will of God, and bear fruits of the Spirit; if it works by love; if it purifies the heart; if it overcomes the world- it is the faith of a Christian.”