You’ve landed on this site and you might be wondering how you can be the church — especially since you’re likely not “at church” right now. Well, we have a few ideas to run past you.

Our mission is to promote unity in the Church at Streator in order to reach our community. That’s lived out in a few different ways:

• First, we saw the need for an information hub to give all Jesus-followers an idea what’s happening in the local Christian community outside our own congregations. So we started a web site. And a Facebook page. And an Instagram. And a Twitter. And a Snapchat. And a YouTube channel. And we have an email address, where you can send us content, if you’d like. We can’t make any promises to promote it, but we’d love to see what you have, or just hear your feedback. Basically, we’re connecting local Christians online. We thought that was a worthwhile endeavor.

• We also like to promote your congregation’s activities and events through our calendar and blog, so people outside the Streator church can have a place to see it. In the old days, when someone new came to Streator, or something inside them stirred up an inkling to attend a service or mass, they’d look at the Yellow Pages for churches. Younger people today don’t use the Yellow Pages. They look online. So feel free to send us information.

• In terms of content, we want it to be in a spirit of unity. Of course, we may have differences on what the essentials are. And the Streator area alone has a wide range of Christian traditions. But the resources we provide here, whether it be study tools or blog posts or links to other ministries, are done to encourage unity in the Church at Streator, to reach the community.

• Simply put, we seek to promote Christ. We do not seek to compete with any area congregation or Christian organization. To the contrary, we want new people to come to Christ through our work together, and then send them into a congregation where their relationships can grow and they can become more like Jesus. Connect with other believers through the Body of Christ is essential. Please don’t mistake this for a faith-only or Bible-only or online-only movement. This is a Jesus movement. “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” (Eph 2:10)

• So, here’s the kicker: we can’t just stay home and not act upon this calling. We must live on mission. What does that look like? Missionaries who go to a foreign country begin by serving the people they’re trying to reach. They meet needs. They learn the language and customs. They build a team that organizes events and ministries. They live intentionally. The greatest missionary in history, Paul the Apostle, said, “I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused it to grow.” (I Cor 3:6). Missionaries try to live like Jesus lived. And then, through that discipleship process, the Holy Spirit opens doors and they begin to teach and speak into peoples’ lives, sharing the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. Missionaries bring hope to the hopeless, healing to the broken, and comfort to those in need.

Our hometown could use that right now. Let’s be the Church at Streator.