“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins.”
Mark 2:22
A Family Integrated Church
Our church is a Family Integrated church. This means that our families worship together and we do not have any systematic age segregation. And there is a good reason for this.
Churches like ours come in all shapes, sizes and varieties. There are FICs in virtually every denomination and in most sections of the country. Singles, students, single-parent families, retired adults, and traditional families all find a home in an age-integrated church.
Our Name
We believe that God is looking for “new” wineskins to fill afresh with His Spirit in these last days. And one of the major obstacles between where His church is now and where we believe His Spirit is moving are the walls we erect between each other and between our obedience and the moving of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, we strive to remove any walls or hindrances that stand between what we are and what He wants us to be.
Hence, our name, The Church Without Walls.
What We Believe and Teach
We know this section may seem long and tedious– but we believe that it is extremely important, probably the most important part of this site. Why? Well, in order for each of us to know where we belong within the body of Christ, we feel it is imperative to fully understand what the church we choose to covenant and associate with believes and teaches.
Remember, a house can stand only as strong as its foundation. And we want to be completely clear as to what our foundation rests upon.
An Underground Church
The Church Without Walls is like an underground church— underground in the sense that it resembles a tree. Let me elaborate.
An underground church is like a tree: its trunk, branches and leaves (the visible part) are only about half of the picture. The unnoticed half, the underground root system, nourishes the whole tree and keeps it healthy.
Thus, the Church Without Walls is like an underground church.
This underground church consists of believers gathered together through a structure of small cell groups meeting in homes to pray, evangelize and build relationships with one another. In this way, each and every believer is made an active and vital part of the body of Christ.
When every believer is nourished and healthy, the whole church is strong. Just as water and nutrients feed the tree by climbing up through the root system, so the church is also nourished and strengthened by what happens in the underground (the unseen) realm of church life— believers involved in home cell groups. Therefore, we believe that meeting together in homes and experiencing relationships in cell group life is just as important as meeting together (visible) each week in a larger gathering to worship and to receive teaching from the Word of God.
If you would like to know more about a cell church, just keep reading…
Something About Us
We’re looking to experience and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ with total abandon and radical faith.
Come join with us. It should be a wild ride!
To find out more about us and what we believe and value, just keep reading…
Locations and Service Times
SUNDAYS
10:30 am
Our Sunday Celebration Worship Service is located at 5300 Lewis Road
(a quarter mile from Chapel Grove Elementary School) in the sanctuary of the
Gastonia Seventh-day Adventist Church.
We meet there on Sunday because they meet on Saturday.
TUESDAYS
7:00 pm
Bible Study at the McCranie’s home
2502 Crowders Creek Road in Gastonia.
We’d love for you to join us for Bible Study.
Some Frequently Asked Questions
What are your Sunday services like?
We begin our Sunday Celebration Service at 10:30 and it usually runs until about noon.
Our Sunday service is a combination of worship in songs and in the study of God’s Word, prayer, fellowship, and Scripture memorization. We try to model our services after Acts 2:42 where the early church “continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
The dress is very casual and the setting is informal. The preaching is expositional where our pastor goes through a book of the Bible, verse by verse, week by week.
Since we are a Family Integrated Church (FIC) our children sit with their parents in our worship service. We do not provide, by design, Sunday School, a nursery, or a children’s church for our young ones.
To find out more about a Family Integrated Church, just keep reading…
Can you tell me about the type of music you have on Sunday?
Our music is a combination of some contemporary praise songs and some great, classic hymns of the faith.
What translation of the Bible do you use?
As a church, we use the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible.
What does your name mean?
We get asked that question a lot. And I mean, a lot! Most of the time people think a church named, The Church Without Walls must meet outside, under the stars. People say, with a smile on their face, “Doesn’t it get cold in the winter, you know, going to a church without any walls?” Well, not exactly.
We call ourselves the Church Without Walls for a very specific reason. And it has to do with what we see as God’s purpose for His church. In fact, we’d love to tell you more about it.
To find out more about the meaning of our church name, just keep reading…
What do you believe and teach?
We have a rather long and detailed Statement of Beliefs that we encourage you to take your time and read. Why? Because correct doctrine is extremely important to us and we don’t want to downplay it like some do by hiding behind statements such as:
We believe in God and we believe in you.
Yawn.
Therefore, you’ll find our Statement of Beliefs quite thorough. And this is by design. We want them to be that way.
To discover what we believe and teach, just keep reading…
What's a Family Integrated Church?
Ah, that’s another question we get asked all the time. What is a Family Integrated Church? Or, why don’t you have a nursery? Or, where is Children’s Church? Or, why are all these young kids sitting with their parents in church?
Why? Because we’ve designed it that way. That’s what a Family Integrated Church looks like on the outside.
Do you want to know why we do church this way? Good. I’m glad. Then to find out more about a Family Integrated Church, just keep reading…
Can you tell me what are your goals and vision as a church?
Absolutely. In fact, you can read all about our goals, vision and mission as a church. To find out more, just keep reading…
Can you tell me more about a cell church?
Sure. We have an entire page devoted to explaining what a cell church is and how you and your family can fit right in. To find out more, just keep reading…
How can I get in touch with your pastor?
You can reach our pastor, Steve McCranie, at stevemccranie@gmail.com or by calling him, day or night, on his cell phone at 704-634-9452. He’s always available to answer your questions, pray with you, counsel with you, or just talk.
You can also find out more about our pastor and listen to some past sermons at: Leaving Laodicea.
“How I kept back nothing that was helpful, but proclaimed it to you, and taught you publicly and from house to house, testifying to Jews, and also to Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Acts 20:20-21