Many people who are unfamiliar with us ask if we are associated with any organizations or denominations.  Because we are committed to team ministry in every aspect of our ministry, associating with a community of other churches for mutual edification, encouragement and accountability just makes sense. We are part of the following associations:

Fellowship Bible Church Association of Churches (fbclr.org/About/ChurchPartners.asp): We are pleased to be part of the Fellowship Bible Church Association of Churches . Fellowship Bible Church of Little Rock (www.fbclr.org) is most widely known because of Robert Lewis's book "The Church of Irresistible Influence" that describes the church's history, philosophy and successes as a biblically based, team-leadership-model church. The church was started by some of the same men who started Fellowship Bible Church of Dallas roughly 30 years ago. Since then Fellowship Bible Church of Little Rock has launched more than 30 successful church plants and have continued to provide a network of support, inter-responsibility, encouragement and ideological resources that have helped sustained these church plants so that, to date, none have failed. Further, Fellowship Associates (www.fellowshipassociates.com) a non-profit entity formed by Fellowship Bible Church has graciously given Tonya and I the opportunity to be part of a paid leadership residency in which we can incubate the planning phase of our church plant with access to and input from all of the staff at Fellowship in Little Rock.


Acts29 Network (A29.org): Acts29 is a network made up entirely of missional churches that are committed to planting new churches. Tim and Tonya attended their church planting bootcamp in February of 2004 and have become fast friends with some A29 church planters including Providence Community in Plano, TX. Potentially, an A29 church (or churches) may assist us with some of the initial funding necessary to launch while at the same time continuing to provide much of the same kinds of relational encouragement and accountability that we have through the Fellowship association.

Evangelical Free Church of America (efca.org): We have well respected friends partnering with the EFCA to plant churches in Long Beach, CA (City Lights Church) and Carlsbad, CA (The Fields Church) and the EFCA churches in the LA area have opened their arms to us in an incredible spirit of cooperation and have extended many warm offers to assist us and pray for us. Del Rey Hills Church and Hope Chapel Gateway have been particularly generous in their offers to assist us and we are extremely grateful for their partnership.

The California Southern Baptists (csbc.com) have extended their assistance to us by seeking to help us secure funding and a consistent meeting space while continuing to connect us to other area churches. We have been encouraged by local SBC pastors and North American Mission Board (www.namb.net) missionaries have offered to help with everything from strategy and planning to equipment needs and prayers.

The Willow Creek Association (willowcreek.org): They not only provide training tools and resources to us, it has also helped significantly with our current rented facility. Because Willow has tens of thousands of churches in its network, it is able to negotiate better lease rates for theaters than we can do on our own. This year alone the Willow Creek Association will be responsible for saving us nearly $4,000 in rent for the theater that we are in.

The NEXT Initiative (nextinitiative.net): The NEXT initiative provided 6 months of mentoring and coaching for Tim when he arrived in Los Angeles. NEXT, a church planting ministry that sprang out of Saddleback Church (www.saddlebackchurch.com) has continued to offer resources, advice and relational support for us throughout the process of launching Paradox.

Because Paradox is associated with other organizations and churches we frequently get questions about emerging theological controversies. To help clarify our beliefs we believe it may also be helpful to declare what we do not believe. In stating what we are not, we do not seek to attack those who disagree with us, but rather to clarify who we are, as well as who we are not.

• We are not theological liberals who embrace culture without discernment and compromise the distinctives of the gospel, but rather Christians who believe the truths of the Bible are eternal and therefore fitting for every time, place, and people.

• We are not fundamentalists who retreat from cultural involvement and transformation, but rather missionaries faithful both to the content of Scripture and context of ministry.

• We are not isolationists and seek to partner with like-minded Christians from various churches, denominations and organizations in planting church-planting churches.

• We are not hyper-Calvinists who get mired down in secondary matters, but rather pray, evangelize, and do good works because we believe that the sovereign plan of God is accomplished through us, His people.

• We are not eschatological dogmatists and we believe that divisive and rigid certainty surrounding particular details of Jesus Second Coming are unprofitable speculation, because the timing and exact details of His return are unclear to us.

• We are not egalitarians and do believe that men should head their homes and male elders should lead their churches with masculine love like Jesus Christ who laid down his life for his bride, the church.

• We are not Open Theists and believe in the sovereignty and foreknowledge of God in all things.

• We are not religious relativists and do believe that there is no salvation apart from faith in Jesus Christ alone.

• We are not nationalists seeking to simply improve one nation but instead ambassadors of the King of Kings commissioned to proclaim and demonstrate the coming of His kingdom to all nations of the earth.

• We are not moralists seeking to help people live good lives, but instead evangelists laboring that people would become new creations in Christ.

• We are not relativists and do gladly embrace Scripture as our highest authority above such things as culture, experience, philosophy, and other forms of revelation.

• We are not Universalists and do believe that many people will spend eternity in the torments of hell as the Bible teaches.

• We are not naturalists and do believe that Satan and demons are real enemies at work in this world and subject to God.

• We are not rationalists and do believe that not everything can be known but that God calls us to live by faith with mystery and partial knowledge regarding many things.

• We are not evangelical feminists and do believe that God reveals Himself as a Father and is to be honored by the names He reveals to us without apology.

• We are not embarrassed by the bloody death of Jesus Christ and do believe He died as a substitute for the sins of His people in selfless love.

• We are not ashamed of and do proclaim a loving gospel of grace which sounds like foolishness and offensiveness to the unrepentant while also saving multitudes with ears to hear good news.

• We are not polemicists who believe that it is our task to combat every false teaching but are passionate about preserving the integrity of the gospel of Jesus Christ.