East Valley House Church Blog

I’m Larry.  Let me give you a short history of our fellowship.  The East Valley House Church came out of a small organized church that met in the Mesa/Gilbert area during the years of 1993-2003.  During that time, we met in a number of locations, the last of which was a Children’s World day care center.  We never had our own place because we never really had a sufficient number of families to support such a purchase.  I was the financial secretary during the entire 10 years so I was in charge of handling the offerings and paying the bills.    During that time, our majory expenditure was always the pastor’s salary.  We always gave at least 15% of our offerings to our fellowship’s various ministries.   We figured that we were doing very well in this area.  

In 2003, when our 3rd pastor resigned to take a position at another church, there was not enough support for calling another pastor.  Most of the families went to other churches.  I think there was a feeling that the church had run its course.  There was a small group that decided to continued to meet without a pastor.  There were some very strong relationships that had grown during the years.  Some of those families later decided to go back to the organized, or institutional church.  

That year, I attended a National House Church Conference held in Dallas by House2House, the ministry of Tony and Felicity Dale.  During that Labor Day weekend, I got a taste of how sweet true fellowship could be.  I saw different groups get together with only one thing in common, their love for Jesus. They also were all meeting in house churches as simple, organic, or cell churches.  I came back feeling that God had opened my eyes to this movement.  

Since then, we have been meeting in homes in Mesa and Gilbert.  The journey has already taken us through many challenges.  Perhaps I’ll write about them as time goes on.  This website is the chronicle of our continued journey as we tackle issues such as doctrine, faith, and trust.  I will do my best to try to keep up with and document this journey.