Note: This church is now forming. Contact us!
Hello! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bertram Loper and my wife is Yvette Loper. I am the pastor of Homeward Bound Cell Church. Let me share some of the vision that the Lord has forged in my heart as well as in the hearts of my family that led us to start this church. I believe that God communicated to my heart the clear command "Start one yourself!" back in 1996 while I was reading a book about cell churches by Ralph Neighbors. Since that time, the call from God to actually begin a ministry of this type has never departed from my thoughts. We participated in several churches over the years and saw churches that were very traditional and program-based as well as some that were less so - even some having cell groups as one of their many programs. However, the idea of a true cell church - one where the focus and the only "program" would be the cells, continued to burn in my heart as God led us continually in that direction [Acts 2:46-47]. This was something I had never seen firsthand, and to be a part of such a church it became clear that I should indeed start one myself!
What is a "cell church?" We differ from most churches in that we do not prioritize having a congregation-wide meeting on a regular schedule at a set place. In fact, we do not own a building at all! And we may never own one. We rent facilities as needed for congregational gatherings. Also, we do not structure our church, our meetings or our leadership around various ministry programs that are typically organized around age or gender (not that we will never have meetings that are an exceptions to this). Our home-based cell groups are the priority of church life and are designed be a place of deeper, more loving relationships than those which are usually cultivated in traditional churches. Cell groups meet weekly and we encourage the people in a group to be more involved with each other's lives than just the cell meeting only by spending time with one another as often as possible. Similar to biological cells in the natural world, our cells should grow, by adding new members, and at some point multiply into two new cells that will continue this pattern as the church grows.
The journey to this new beginning has taken me and my family to several places of discovery. We have felt the clear hand of God showing us the need for the Holy Spirit to be included in all we do in ministry. The baptism (filling) of the Holy Spirit is sought after and cherished in our ministry. This baptism, which we liken to the glory of God entering His temple (as we are now his temple) is a filling of power and gifting that is fundamental to accomplishing the fullness of what we are able for Kingdom of God. We see that the Apostles in Acts prayed for the Word of God to go forth in boldness with signs and wonders in the name of Jesus and were immediately filled with the Holy Spirit [Acts 4:29-31]. We pray unashamedly in like manner today. This is what being a "spirit-filled" church means to us.
We are non-denominational. This simply means that we have chosen to remain independent from the locked-in structure, doctrine and politics of a traditional denomination. Not that such affiliations are necessarily bad, we just do not feel that it is a good fit for us. We do seek to be fully submitted to the headship of Christ in all that we do and know that He will guide us in all things. In this pursuit, we hold to the Bible as the inerrant written Word of God and use the scripture as a source of absolute truth guiding all that we do. We like to approach doctrine with a heart of having a love for the truth. We feel that no denomination or teacher understands all of the truth with 100% accuracy and revelation. We, ourselves, are no exception. We have a section on doctrine in this site devoted to openly describing where we as a church currently are on our journey to truth. We have not "arrived" and will surely add to and revise our understanding of some things before we are through.
Hello! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Bertram Loper and my wife is Yvette Loper. I am the pastor of Homeward Bound Cell Church. Let me share some of the vision that the Lord has forged in my heart as well as in the hearts of my family that led us to start this church. I believe that God communicated to my heart the clear command "Start one yourself!" back in 1996 while I was reading a book about cell churches by Ralph Neighbors. Since that time, the call from God to actually begin a ministry of this type has never departed from my thoughts. We participated in several churches over the years and saw churches that were very traditional and program-based as well as some that were less so - even some having cell groups as one of their many programs. However, the idea of a true cell church - one where the focus and the only "program" would be the cells, continued to burn in my heart as God led us continually in that direction [Acts 2:46-47]. This was something I had never seen firsthand, and to be a part of such a church it became clear that I should indeed start one myself!
What is a "cell church?" We differ from most churches in that we do not prioritize having a congregation-wide meeting on a regular schedule at a set place. In fact, we do not own a building at all! And we may never own one. We rent facilities as needed for congregational gatherings. Also, we do not structure our church, our meetings or our leadership around various ministry programs that are typically organized around age or gender (not that we will never have meetings that are an exceptions to this). Our home-based cell groups are the priority of church life and are designed be a place of deeper, more loving relationships than those which are usually cultivated in traditional churches. Cell groups meet weekly and we encourage the people in a group to be more involved with each other's lives than just the cell meeting only by spending time with one another as often as possible. Similar to biological cells in the natural world, our cells should grow, by adding new members, and at some point multiply into two new cells that will continue this pattern as the church grows.
The journey to this new beginning has taken me and my family to several places of discovery. We have felt the clear hand of God showing us the need for the Holy Spirit to be included in all we do in ministry. The baptism (filling) of the Holy Spirit is sought after and cherished in our ministry. This baptism, which we liken to the glory of God entering His temple (as we are now his temple) is a filling of power and gifting that is fundamental to accomplishing the fullness of what we are able for Kingdom of God. We see that the Apostles in Acts prayed for the Word of God to go forth in boldness with signs and wonders in the name of Jesus and were immediately filled with the Holy Spirit [Acts 4:29-31]. We pray unashamedly in like manner today. This is what being a "spirit-filled" church means to us.
We are non-denominational. This simply means that we have chosen to remain independent from the locked-in structure, doctrine and politics of a traditional denomination. Not that such affiliations are necessarily bad, we just do not feel that it is a good fit for us. We do seek to be fully submitted to the headship of Christ in all that we do and know that He will guide us in all things. In this pursuit, we hold to the Bible as the inerrant written Word of God and use the scripture as a source of absolute truth guiding all that we do. We like to approach doctrine with a heart of having a love for the truth. We feel that no denomination or teacher understands all of the truth with 100% accuracy and revelation. We, ourselves, are no exception. We have a section on doctrine in this site devoted to openly describing where we as a church currently are on our journey to truth. We have not "arrived" and will surely add to and revise our understanding of some things before we are through.