A multi-generational family team on mission.
God's first societal order
The family was God's first societal order. He created Adam and Eve in His own image and gave them a commission: Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. The household, in other words, was always meant to be a hub through which God's image and glory would spread across His world.
Then came the fall. Sin entered the family — and from the family it entered every other sphere of life. Marriage was broken, parents and children were broken, brothers turned against brothers, and the household became a place of grief as often as a place of grace.
But King Jesus has inaugurated a New Covenant. By His life, death, and resurrection He is redeeming the broken and sinful qualities of family so that the household can be brought back into strong overlap with the household of God. He does not disregard the household. He redeems it. And He grants it the dignified role of symbolizing Christ and His Church (Ephesians 5:22–33).
What we mean by "household"
A household, as we understand it from Scripture, is a multi-generational family team on mission.
Biblically and historically, the household has been more than the nuclear family. It has encompassed both biological and spiritual relationships, and often economic relationships as well — business, labor, hospitality, shared resources. It is the basic God-given unit through which the gospel takes root in the soil of ordinary life.
Godly households are built according to God's design for husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, parents and children (Genesis 2:18–25; Ephesians 5:21–6:4). And they function as outposts of light — small embassies of the Kingdom of God in their neighborhoods, their workplaces, their schools, and their cities.
The family leads the household, but the household includes all who belong to it. It is not just a weekly gathering. It is a way of life lived together under the lordship of Jesus.
Why this matters now
We live in a culture entrenched in hyper-individualism — the assumption that the autonomous self is the basic unit of human life. We do not believe this is God's design, and we do not believe a healthy humanity can thrive on it. In fact, we believe radical individualism is often anti-Christ in its disposition: it rejects the dependencies and obligations that God Himself wrote into creation.
The gospel of Jesus Christ empowers God's people to honor, obey, and proclaim Him in every area of life — including the area where He started: the family.
So we are not a church that disciples individuals in spite of their households. We are a church that disciples individuals as part of their households, and that disciples households together as households.
How this shapes Light House Church
This conviction shapes nearly everything about how we gather, lead, and grow.
Fathers lead. We believe each father is the head of his own household. In the rhythms of our church life, fathers carry primary responsibility for integrating their family into the Body, encouraging their household in the Bible Reading Plan, serving their family communion when appropriate, and being the family's voice as we test prophecies, make decisions together, and keep our commitments to one another.
Kids are part of the Body. Children are not a separate "ministry" that runs in parallel to the real church. They are members of the household, and they belong with us. We do age-appropriate training — some kids are ready to participate fully, some are in training with a parent, some need childcare for a season — but the goal is always integration, not segregation.
Discipleship happens in and through the household. The elders program Sundays, but heads of household lead the rest of the week — meals, work, hospitality, evangelism, Discovery Bible Study, the everyday stuff that turns out to be the space where God forms disciples and sends disciple makers.
Multiplication through the household. As households grow healthy and mature, they will multiply — not just in raising biological children, but in raising up and sending out other disciple makers, church planters, and missionaries, some of whom will link arms with others to reproduce this household expression of the Church themselves.
A picture of where we're going
Our prayer is that Light House Church would be a community of households — strong Christian families and single-minded singles — who together form a hub for the gospel in the Twin Cities and beyond. Out of this soil, we believe God will plant healthy churches: some house churches under a regional network, some traditional congregations, and some globally.
We are a spiritual family of missionary servants sent to make disciples who make disciples.
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