At Our Fellowship we desire to see people
free to have fellowship unencumbered by alienation, legalism, and manipulation. Through home fellowships and informal meetings we make this approach available to the community.
Ours is a fellowship of regular people for regular people.
In the late 1970s a movement was born in Rochester, NY. Many people became disillusioned with the corporate mentality of church, and the penchant in many congregations to use gimmicks to bring in members. These people began meeting together in homes, seeking a pure form of fellowship.
By the mid 1980s many of these groups had grown too large to continue meeting in living rooms, and found other locations in which to gather. Little or no cost was associated with these meeting places. These groups continued in simple, pure fellowship.
Soon the leaders of these groups were no longer content with modest lifestyles. They had to increase their congregation sizes and use fairy tales of supernatural reward and punishment to bring in more money. By the late 1990s they began to develop entertaining programs to draw people in, and legalistic demands to keep them there.
Coffee shops, restaurants, gift stores, radio stations, and other money making enterprises became priorities for these churches, and the people were told they had to sacrifice for "God's work" in the community. Pastors demanded (and received) hefty salaries and expense accounts. Bigger and better buildings were planned and constructed.
They had become what they sought to escape. To this day they continue, extortion and manipulation hiding behind the protection of the name "church."
Pastor Jack was involved in this movement in the Rochester, NY area during this time, and decided to leave when the commercialism took over. Our Fellowship embodies his vision to return to simpler times.
Fellowship is about relationships, not a set of mandated laws and ceremonial observances. At Our Fellowship we emphasize and encourage those relationship.
Our Fellowship is an independently chartered church
devoted to the purpose of bringing people together to better the community
by implementing the practical aspects of faith. If you are interested in starting a home based fellowship or informal church we would like to help you.
