How a house becomes a home

Highway 118 makes entering Simi Valley easy: just drive over the hill and cruise right into the small city between Los Angeles and the California coast.

Getting Simi people into the family of God, of course, hasn’t been as easy. But The Gathering is helping more people in the city of 126,000 enter the kingdom. The Converge congregation meets in house churches on Sundays for people who often won’t attend traditional Christian services.

“There had to be a different way that we can connect people to Jesus,” pastor Paul Weir said. 

He said the town has churched, unchurched and dechurched people who all have baggage from past experiences at church, whether positive, negative or neutral. Many in the valley are uninterested in Sunday morning worship or Christian events.

So, the church started in September 2020 as a house church. They met in one home with 14 people. Those people made a commitment to each other and the Lord that continues to this day. There are now 45 people meeting in multiple house churches in the area.

A church in action for those who don’t follow Jesus

God is connecting with people far from him through this different way of being the church. For example, a bisexual woman who doesn’t believe God exists asked her friend, a regular at The Gathering, if she could join her there.

“Somehow [the friend’s] life and her witness and her testimony were attractive enough that this woman wanted to come and see what it was about,” Weir said. “To me, that’s how outreach happens. That’s the church in action.”

Weir said the visiting woman had such a good experience that she asked if she could return.

“She’s excited about coming and wants to see what this is all about,” Weir added.

This church removes barriers by deemphasizing buildings

A strength of The Gathering’s ministry is its flexibility, rooted in a conviction that the church is the people, never the location. 

When the aforementioned Christian’s friend wanted to come, Weir asked if the believer would host. The Christian woman said yes, agreeing that her friend’s comfort was more important than the congregation’s custom.

“We wanted this woman not to have any barriers, to be sitting in a comfortable place,” Weir said. “She could sit and observe and listen and not have barriers in front of her, but just be able to hear what people were saying and see the interactions we had.”

A ministry for every moment in a one-way town

Simi Valley has an established suburban identity, although some changes have happened among people who often work in Los Angeles. For those people, this is a town with only one road in and out. 

Here, people are living their days without knowing Christ as Lord. But God keeps calling people closer to himself through The Gathering’s house churches. 

People with addiction issues have made progress toward freedom. Believers with deep, difficult conflicts in their relationships have made progress in restoring those connections.

That’s because The Gathering has revealed anew the ancient path into the kingdom: disciples who make disciples by coming together in homes for worship, fellowship, spiritual growth and service.

The network of home churches prioritizes three interconnected efforts with their activities, budgets and times together. They seek to be a family and they pursue Jesus and his mission.

Some Sundays include worship and Biblical teaching. Other times, someone comes in and needs the family of Jesus to help them with a significant struggle. On those days, the believers have everything in common and pursue Jesus as a family rather than a plan.

“We have been given by Jesus the ministry of reconciliation, and we have been given a ministry by Jesus to go and make disciples,” Weir said. “I want people to engage in the ministry of reconciliation. That’s our ministry, every single one of us.”

Converge's 10 districts have committed to deploying 312 church planters before 2026. Read more inspiring church planting stories and learn about the goal to send out 312 church planters in five years.