“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 Value and Believe
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.
To find out more…
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
My name is Steve McCranie and I’m the pastor of this wonderful church with the strange name: The Church Without Walls. We’re a family of Believers who love the Lord Jesus with all our being but are somewhat unsure about the church of today, the American church, the denominational church we all grew up in.
We’re looking to experience and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ with total abandon and radical faith. In other words, we don’t want to settle for the comfortable or the status quo. We want to know Christ, “the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Cor. 1:24).
Come join with us. It should be a wild ride!
To find out more about us and what we believe, just continue reading…
Locations and Service Times
SUNDAYS
10:30am Celebration Service at the Shepherding Center
2502 Crowders Creek Road
Gastonia, NC 28052
TUESDAYS
7:00pm Bible Study at the Pendergrass Barn
1107 Crossland Road
Clover, SC 29710
WEDNESDAYS
7:00pm Young Married Men’s Bible Study at the Shepherding Center
THURSDAYS
6:00pm Youth Led Bible Study at the Shepherding Center
FRIDAYS
10:00am Young Mother’s Bible Study at the Shepherding Center
7:00pm Young Men’s Bible Study at the Pendergrass Barn
The Shepherding Center
The Shepherding Center
The Shepherding Center
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.”
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 continue 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. For example, over the last few weeks we have sung as a congregation:
10,000 Reasons
Agnus Dei
All the People Said, Amen
Blessed Assurance
Children of God
Great is Thy Faithfulness
How Deep the Father’s Love For Us
In Christ Alone
Mercy Tree
Our Great God
This is Amazing Grace
Thrive
Wonderful, Merciful Savior
You Are God Alone
Your Great Name
Hopefully this will give you an idea of the type or style of worship music we sing. But remember, for us, content, meaning and doctrine is far more important than style in the music we choose to praise our Lord with.
What translation of the Bible do you use?
As a church, we use the New King James Version (NKJV) of the Bible.
Can you tell me more about a cell church?
Sure. We have an entire page on this site devoted to explaining what a cell church is and how you and your family can fit right in. To find out more, just continue reading…
Can you tell me what are your goals and vision as a church?
Absolutely. In fact, you can read about our goals and vision, as well as what we believe as a church, just continue 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 is always available to answer your questions, pray with you, counsel you, or just to talk. You can find out more about our pastor, just continue reading…