Although we no longer brand ourselves as a traditional Church of Christ, we know that our Church of Christ heritage continues to enrich our worship and community:
We practice communion every week at our gathering.
We sing some acapella songs nearly every week, which is a strong pillar of Church of Christ tradition.
We have elders and deacons as part of our church leadership structure.
We prioritize and encourage familiarity with and understanding of scripture for the purpose of deepening each person’s appreciation of the life, teachings, and example of Jesus Christ.
We have an emphasis on missions, locally and abroad. Supporting mission work is a part of heritage we proudly retain.
Like Churches of Christ, Christ Connect Church is autonomous. Although we maintain informal connections with other churches and Church of Christ universities, there is not a governing body that we receive direction from as a church. Rather, our elders (leaders appointed from among our congregation) set the direction for our church.
We made the decision to formally remove Church of Christ from the end of our name because we have several practices in our worship and leadership structure that people would not expect to find in a traditional Church of Christ:
We believe that men and women are equally gifted by the Spirit for public roles in worship gatherings: leading prayers, leading worship, preaching, etc.
Although we still sing acapella songs in worship, we also worship with instruments. When we first began using instruments in worship, we had an acapella service and an instrumental service. Now, we have one combined service with both instruments and acapella selections.
We believe that the Spirit equips men and women equally for leadership within the church. We have female ministers and will soon appoint female deaconesses, just as, at minimum, one church we read about in the New Testament did.