What is your church about?

We want to be a church that revolves around following Jesus, so we spend a good amount of time talking about Jesus—his life, teachings, and what it means to be one of his followers. We would love for you to follow Jesus with is—he’ll absolutely change your life!

What kind of church is Cedar Lane?

Cedar Lane is a part of a fellowship or tradition called the Churches of Christ.

What even is a church of Christ?

This is a long and complicated conversation! The truth is they’re all a little different but we share a lot in common because of common history, traditions, and relationships. Honestly, the wikipedia page can give you the broad strokes and is pretty fair, but there are places that wouldn’t really fit us. Here are the basics:

• We practice church autonomy (our association with other churches of Christ is entirely unofficial)

• Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are heavily emphasized practices.

• We typically worship a capella, singing without instrumental backing. This is usually one of the first things people recognize because it’s obviously different than a lot of churches.

Oh wait, you guys are the ones who think you’re the only ones going to heaven, right?

No.

Who’s in Charge here?

Well, we’d like to say the real answer is Jesus, but we know that’s not what you’re really asking. In terms of our authority structure, we have a group of elders who all serve on a volunteer basis. Sometimes we call them shepherds. They have the final oversight responsibility for church decision making, but they seek to do that in a healthy way by entrusting others with responsibility for different ministry areas and empowering them to make most of the day-to day decisions.

Our ministers have particular roles and are supported by the church financially, and in lots of ways serve as partners with the elders. We also have Deacons, who are volunteers tasked with leading and supporting particular ministry areas.

Ultimately, we think churches are better off when the power, responsibility, and workload isn’t all concentrated on one or two people. So we try to practice sharing those things among multiple people.

What does decision making look like at Cedar Lane?

Our elders make most of their decisions on a consensus basis, though sometimes they vote amongst themselves if a consensus can’t be reached. We have a culture that values unity and defaults to simplicity in lots of ways, but we’re always trying to ask ourselves how we are being called to participate in the mission of God in our world. That means listening closely to scripture and to what we can sense of the Holy Spirit moving among us as a people.

Seriously, what’s the deal with not having instruments?

Look, if you ask ten different people at Cedar Lane, you’re probably going to get ten different answers on this, ranging from “It’s just what we do” to “It’s not in the Bible, so we don’t do it.” You might even get a few “I kind of wish we did” responses thrown in. Our a capella tradition has deep roots, and at times it was something our religious ancestors fought about with some intensity. We don’t really talk or even think about it too much anymore. (We’re kind of over arguing about it.) At this point, it’s probably more about our particular religious culture than anything else, and most of us really like it. It can be beautiful and is hyper-participative. We hope you’ll come to like it, too.

Hey, you forgot to capitalize the C in your name!

No, we did that on purpose. No cap. Our full technical name is “The church of Christ at Cedar Lane”. We do it to recognize that we are a “little c” part of the “Big C” Church. Truth be told, most of the time we just call ourselves “Cedar Lane”, though.

What should I expect if I’m going to visit?

We’ve got another FAQ section just for that kind of stuff. We look forward to seeing you!