Big Life C.C. History
Faith on the American Frontier |
The tradition we come from is one of the oldest denominations born in the US - on the wild, 19th century frontier. In a massive outdoor festival in Kentucky, the Cane Ridge Revival, over 10,000 people found a new and fresh reason to pursue Christianity. It was faith that rejected denominational divisions and focused on faith in Jesus through personal independence and freedom.
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Faith that is Free |
Barton Stone, a minister and abolitionist wanted people to concentrate on the big things, Jesus as savior, and stop getting caught up in all the things that churches tend to get caught in, like denominational distinctions, traditions, and practices. He wanted people to have the FREEDOM to disagree on the non-essentials and the ability to focus their unity on the essential aspect of Christianity, faith in Jesus.
Within this free system, each Church congregation is fully independent, but the larger Church of the nation and world remains in community - built around the only belief that is central, faith in Jesus. |
Faith with Reason |
Alexander Campbell, wanted to build the Christian faith in a way that focused on Jesus, using individual insight and reason to distinguish between essential and non-essential aspects of faith. He believed each person could work out their faith questions through approaching the Bible for themselves, while focusing on the essential unity of faith in Jesus as a community of believers. He felt reason and intellect should never be in conflict with faith, but should augment faith.
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Faith with
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Stone & Campbell came together to unify their two movements characterized by the hope for Christian unity:
The Denominational Church / movement they founded together was known as the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), merging their two movements into one faith. This faith is defined by: 1. Personal Liberty - each person is responsible to choose and cultivate faith for themselves. 2. Congregational Independence - each congregation is fully independent in all aspects of ministry. 3. Christian Unity - all believers are united in their central belief in Jesus as Savior. Additional habits of this faith tradition include: 1. Baptism of believers as Jesus was baptized - at an age of personal decision through immersion under water 2. Celebration of the Lord's Table through Communion that is open and available to all who believe in Jesus 3. Equality and personal responsibility of believers Big Life Community Church is a congregation in formation, becoming a new, fully independent church of this movement. |
Faith that
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Eureka College was founded in 1855 by a group of Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) abolitionists who had left Kentucky because of their opposition to slavery. When the school was founded, it was only the third school in the United States and the first school in Illinois to educate women on an equal basis with men. It educated and prepared students for missionary work.
Abraham Lincoln spoke on campus in 1856. President Ronald Reagan graduated from Eureka College in 1932 with a degree in economics and sociology, and the college has continued to be closely associated with his legacy. In 2010, Eureka College was designated as a national historic district by the United States Park Service. It still functions as a liberal arts college. |
PneuProject
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PneuProject is a spiritual mission that exists to start large, creative churches, that share Jesus with people who don't go to church.
PneuProject believes that welcoming, inviting, and including people to experience faith is the first step to them building their personal relationship with God, and giving God better with their lives. Building invitational faith opportunities is one of the most important works of the Church. PneuProject takes a fresh look at Jesus, removing judgement, politics, and exclusion from the religious experience, returning to the faith Jesus started that is all about radical, world-changing love, authenticity, and community. It's real faith for real people with real freedom. PneuProject's first local congregation is Big Life Community Church, launched September of 2012 in Oswego, IL. The goal of PneuProject's first local congregation is to create a large, vibrant, reproducing church that is larger than 500 persons, many of whom are baptized or return to faith through its ministry work. PneuProject is a new project built to share faith in new ways, named from pneuma, the Greek word for breath, wind, and spirit, used most frequently to describe God in the New Testament. PneuProject's launch was funded in part by the New Church Establishment Committee of the IL & WI Region of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Big Life C.C. was started by PneuProject and is a fully independent congregation, affiliated with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) movement. |
Big Life Community Church
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Big Life Community Church was launched in Oswego, IL in September of 2012. It is a congregation that expresses the history on which it has been built.
Big Life C.C. is judgement-free faith, built on taking a fresh look at faith in Jesus. In its one hour gatherings, Big Life C.C. encourages people to take next-steps in their faith through unapologetically positive faith, faith for the other 6 days of the week. Big Life Community Church is big tent faith, where people can gather and be encouraged in their faith in Jesus regardless of politics, personal faith history, or lack thereof. Big Life C.C. follows the teaching of Jesus and is judgment-free faith. Big Life Community Church measures success by the life change of the people affiliated. Big Life C.C. baptizes people choosing faith in Jesus - many for the first time, or the first time in a long time. The people of the church are growing in generosity, invitation, mission and positivity over the course of the weeks or months they had been connected to faith through Big Life C.C. The impact on the community includes life-changing ministries like INK 180, Young Life, Saturday Stars, Special Needs Prom Oswego, Eve's Angels, Propel for Women, and much, much more! |
