The Well is a missional church in Sussex County, Delaware.
We model ourselves after the way we see Jesus living, serving, partying, loving, and working in the gospels. Jesus invited his disciples to live and serve alongside him in ministry. Jesus freely gave the blessings of God, caring for the physical and spiritual needs of his community. Jesus ate with sinners, and brought the party. Jesus challenged the cultural norms of the day: elevating women, children, and those outside of his faith tradition and ethnicity. Jesus is the ultimate model for missional living—everyone who encountered him was changed. The goal of The Well, then, is fruitful discipleship. We believe every believer has been commanded and empowered to make disciples. We believe discipleship happens by living with intention alongside our families, friends, neighbors, and coworkers: building relationships, genuinely loving and serving those around us. We believe our neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools are mission fields ripe for the harvest, where every believer is a missionary reorienting our schedules and rhythms to pursue the people God has already placed in our lives and those who probably would not come to us. We believe these relationships are more important than the numbers in attendance at a worship service. The primary expression of these beliefs is our missional communities (MCs). MCs meet for the purpose of equipping believers to live on mission in their everyday contexts. Because we believe we are the church, we function as the church—encouraging and teaching each other from Scripture, worshipping, sharing communion meals, serving our town, loving our people well, and celebrating the work that God has done. Here, everyone has a place at the table. Another expression of the church is our worship gathering. We believe we are the church, so we don’t refer to this gathering as “church”—it is simply the gathering of believers to celebrate what God has done throughout the week. Everyone who attends will be welcomed, loved, and accepted, but we also realize this celebration will not appeal to everyone the way it does to those who belong to God’s family. This might look exactly as you’d expect, or it might look more like a family reunion than a worship service. |