Captured by the simple love story of God and His amazing Grace

Family

Simeon & Sonya

Simeon has 25+ years of pastoral experience leading a staff while providing spiritual direction and solid biblical teaching to both small and large congregations. In addition, He has a strong interest in discipling new Christians and developing the next generation of church leaders, ensuring the church remains relevant to the community and the unchurched.

Simeon has been able to effectively leverage his ministry life experience, creativity, leadership expertise, and knowledge of Scripture in mentoring, preaching, teaching, evangelizing, team building and shepherding.

Sonya has been married to Simeon thirty-one years and has been faithfully serving alongside him in full-time ministry during those years. Together they have raised two amazing children, Lemuel and Liesel, who both love God and are also serving in full-time ministry. Sonya likes a card game (Nertz, Euchre, etc.) every now and again, laughing, writing, decorating their home, and loves to dive deep into God’s Word. Her wisdom, fun-loving personality, and hospitality is the perfect blend for their mentoring, shepherding and disciple-making ministry. Sonya also enjoys spoiling their dog, Onyx, who thinks she’s human (and has her own Instagram account).

Lemuel & Joanna

Lemuel is married to Joanna and is serving full-time as Art Director at Hope City in Houston, Texas. Joanna is also serving full-time at Hope City as Executive Project Manager. Together they are passionate about Jesus and making disciples, and they believe God is calling them to some day plant a church.

Liesel

Liesel recently graduated from ministry school at Church of the Highlands in Birmingham, Alabama, and is a strong leader and has a huge heart for the local church. She presently serves as an administrative assistant for the Association of Related Churches (ARC), and is stepping up in many other ministry areas—answering God’s call on her life.

God’s gracious offer of salvation facilitates our turning from sin and culminates when our faith is placed in His Son’s sacrifice, as not only payment for our debt of sin but also the means by which we become God’s purchased possession — the Church.

ministry philosophy

Simeon enjoys working collaboratively and wants to raise up, equip and mentor Spirit-led leaders who are in awe of God. His passion is to organically grow the local church alongside a team by reaching both the religious and irreligious with the simple message of Christ.

leadership

Simeon’s leadership style can be categorized as transformational, relational, and strategic. His emphasis is to help create valuable and positive change in his team with the end goal of developing leaders by:

• setting high expectations

• valuing, empowering and encouraging

• providing support and recognition

• teaching to look beyond self-interests

• inspiring and motivating to do more than imagined

Church growth

Statistics indicate that 90% of churches in the United States have stopped growing and are even declining. One of the reasons has to do with the consumerist mentality of many church-goers. If a church is to spiritually thrive and experience numeric growth, the congregation must begin to think less about themselves and more about sharing the Good News with their city.

Even though I am free of the demands and expectations of everyone, I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it! — 1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (MSG)

All over the country—Judea, Samaria, Galilee—the church grew. They were permeated with a deep sense of reverence for God. The Holy Spirit was with them, strengthening them. They prospered wonderfully. — Acts 9:31 (MSG)

The three characteristics of healthy, thriving churches are as follows:

I. Bridge-building

The word “priest” in Latin is pontifex which means “bridge builder.” Jesus is the bridge builder between God and man. In the Old Testament many priests became more of a barricade than a bridge, more of hinderance than a help. This is true with many well-meaning Christian churches today. Often our fixation on personal preferences, methodologies, personalities and programs—rather than on Christ—can distract people away from experiencing a relationship with God.

Being a bridge-building church requires us to humbly stay focused on Jesus, the only One who can connect us with the Father. This means that every song, every sermon, every activity and endeavor of the Church should explicitly, or at the very least, implicitly point people to Christ.

II. Gospel-centric

To be evangelical is not just being a messenger to a hurting world, it’s about the proclamation and demonstration of a specific message—the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel proclamation is telling people that Jesus died on the cross to give us eternal life, and we can experience that life by grace through faith. Also, the gospel demonstration is when we live out the implications of the Gospel in our community by showing the love of Jesus through our actions and treating others with dignity and compassion. Healthy churches don't just preach the Gospel, they live the Gospel because it’s integral to the life of every church member. This is the best way to “tell” the message.

III. Fruitful

Over the years Simeon has become less obsessed with growing the church numerically through marketing, and more focused on individuals growing spiritually by establishing a healthy church culture of Christian fellowship, personal witness, and discipleship—quality over quantity.

When believers are spiritually fed, in consistent godly community, and share Jesus with others, God will add to the church daily. Numerical growth will be organic, healthy and sustainable. In the end, it’s really not about counting numbers, it’s caring for people.

I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it! —1 Corinthians 9:19-23 (MSG)

influences

Tim Keller, John Piper, & R.C. Sproul—theological and devotional

Robert Morris & Brian Houston—inspirational and motivational

John Siebeling & Chris Hodges—pastoral and directional

Over the years Simeon and Sonya have become less obsessed with growing the church numerically through marketing, and more focused on individuals growing spiritually by establishing a healthy church culture of Christian fellowship, personal witness, and discipleship—quality over quantity.

Beliefs & Values  

The message of God’s unmerited favor and unconditional love has literally transitioned Simeon and Sonya away from years of religious tradition and legalism, and has transformed their hearts. Ten years ago they not only accepted the gospel of grace for themselves but also helped initiate a transition for their congregation as well. This required the help of the Holy Spirit to guide the congregation and the entire church board through major doctrinal and philosophical changes — articles of faith, bylaws and church name.

Beliefs 

Values

• Biblical literacy and accurate theology

• Discipleship in small groups

• Servant leadership

• Ethnic, cultural and generational diversity

• Authenticity

• Humility

• Honesty

• Family

• Laughter

• Healthy living

• Creative Excellence

• Good eats