Albert Everett

Church Planting & Missional Leader in Delaware County, Pennsylvania

My wife, Audrey, and I serve out of Aston, PA, just a few miles southwest of Philadelphia. We are seeking to establish a missional presence in our community and throughout the county using a Missional Community (MC) lifestyle model. The MC lifestyle focuses the energy and resources of leaders and followers alike in organic discipleship of those neighbors in the community who are unlikely to attend a Sunday church service or a church program. We're looking to share the love of Jesus as we walk in day-to-day life, displaying the nature and character of God in down to earth, tangible ways. This gives us all regular opportunities to share the hope we have in Jesus with our neighbors. As relationships grow and trust builds, we establish newer followers in regular relationship with more established followers of Jesus in an MC group that meets in a local home. The MC meets weekly for a family meal, conversation and a more formal dialogue around a faith topic, usually a story taken directly from the pages of Scripture. The meal creates an intimate atmosphere in which we can challenge each other to live a life of God-centered, everyday worship. Missional living builds small yet vibrant bodies of faith-filled followers of Jesus who see their discipleship as an all-of-life, 24/7 decision that affects all they are and do; not a Sunday morning faith, but an everyday faith. We like to say we are "bringing Jesus into the stuff of everyday life." We compel followers of Jesus to take their common call to make disciples seriously, as if they are a community of light within a community of darkness. We want to function as an oasis of rest as well as centers for mission, going well beyond providing a worship center. We are actively making disciples who are actively making disciples. Delaware County is a largely blue-collar region with relatively low income. The area is more urban then most of the counties that surround Philly and has a few neighborhoods that are quite impoverished including the oft maligned City of Chester. As we build a network of friendships in nearby Chester, and throughout southern Delco, we are beginning to lay the ground work for launching a cross-cultural church ministry that will provide holistic gospel-centered care and challenge for the broken of the region.