Building Project Photo Album

About Branches Of Christ

History

Branches of Christ began in the fall of 2000 as two different 3-year-old start-up churches felt the Lord leading them to combine efforts. Both churches had started with the desire to reach out to un-churched people that felt rejected, ignored, or like they had fallen through the cracks. Neither start-up had received any outside financial support and found out how many obstacles have to be overcome in establishing a relevant and recognized body of believers. The Leadership teams hit their knees and set a fairly simple set of requests before the Lord: “Do you even need another church in this area, or is there another congregation that is already doing what we feel led to do? If you need one, what is it that we need to do to complete the church body and compliment the work of the other churches? What is the niche that we need to fill? And is it still possible to build a church upon the Word and Prayer? Please close the door to anything outside of your will, and open the doors You wish for us to step through”.

Doors opened and none closed. We stepped through them and put our faith into action by signing a three year lease on an old strip mall on Highway 92, a couple of miles out of Acworth. While we worked on a major renovation to that space, we prayed about a name for this new church. We searched the Bible for names/things that the New Testament called the followers of Christ. We embraced the fact that we are “Christians” only, but we never want to act as though we are “the only Christians”. We wanted a name that would be about Jesus but not exclude us or stereo-type us with others. After praying over numerous possibilities, we all felt confident that Branches of Christ would be a name we should seek to live up to. John 15:5 states that He is the vine and we are the Branches. It goes on to say that we can only exist if we abide in Him. That was something we wanted to live up to and we liked the idea it presented; branching together and branching out.

Over the next ten years, the church body grew. The five original suites expanded to all that were available plus all of the other buildings on the property. The Lord was so good to us. He always brought the people we needed at just the right time. Of course we struggled growing as families moved in and out with the Atlanta job market.  Others came for a while and would leave in order to take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them with a larger congregation. We solidified our mission of Acceptance toward Christ first and then others. We knew we wanted to be a balanced church; Biblically based, but not legalistic. Casual, but not sloppy. Laid back, but intense. Focused on helping others develop throughout the process of salvation more than arguing the point of salvation. Perfectly forgiven, but in no way self-righteous. Serving God by serving mankind. We continue to use these as our checkpoints in order to stay on track. Two other things we continued to maintain as fundamental; we would pass Communion every week to remember Christ and we would not pass an offering plate. We wanted people to give simply and from their heart.

Branches felt that our facility was hindering us somewhat from reaching our potential and sought a variety of other options, but all of them would have put us in a financial challenge. Following one of our Men’s Breakfast Club, a group of five guys or so asked the leadership if they could do a full demographic study. They looked at every opportunity for lease, purchase of existing buildings, land, and situations under construction within ten miles. Out of all their discoveries, two places stood out as feasible possibilities; buying our hwy. 92 location and this previously looked at existing church on Jacobs Road. The door opened WIDE and made it an obvious choice.

Our church pulled together and overhauled that facility before we ever moved in. We wanted a place that would be large on acceptance in making new people feel comfortable and non-threatening. Our goal was to have an auditorium that feels like a living room and a children’s area that they would want to be a part of each week. We wanted a building that would represent our church. We now have that tool. The rest of history is still being written. May it reflect that we kept God first and others second in our pursuit of living for Him.