About the Institute for Uniting Church and Home
Since its founding in 2001, the Institute for Uniting Church and Home (IUCAH) has committed to encouraging, instructing, and training church leaders and households in uniting the church and the home in accomplishing the Great Commission with the vision of each spiritual generation training up the next.
We believe the Great Commission includes Evangelism and Discipleship as largely integrated processes that occur through relationships that reach the heart, where authentic transformation takes place through God’s prescribed means: the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Scripture provides a pattern of household relationships in the church through which His Holy Spirit directs this transformation process, relationships most elementally modeled in the home.
The Institute’s biblical focus and its gracious and encouraging tone have been a welcome support for numerous church leaders, pastors, elders, deacons, youth leaders, children’s ministry leaders, men’s ministry leaders, women’s ministry and denominational leaders.
The amazingly diverse mix of church affiliations working with the Institute reinforces the biblical foundation, focus, and work of IUCAH. Such variety also demonstrates that God is alive and well in His Church and that He is enthusiastic about reforming the Church for and through the gospel of Jesus Christ…outward to the ends of the earth.
We believe that the reformation God is about in His church is one of rediscovering and recommitting to the inseparable embrace of Bible orthodoxy and orthopraxy—of knowing and applying His Truth to all of life.
As a ministry, our focus is on changing relationships—with the goal of “becoming conformed to the likeness of His Son”—not necessarily changing church programs. We do not believe that such reformation automatically requires the removal of some or all church programs. While some programs might be changed, and a few might actually be discontinued, we do not make the removal of programs our focus.
The Institute’s approach to implementing this vision is distinct and includes:
• A heart to build up the Bride of Christ.
• A refreshing commitment to reforming the local church in a way that is positive, encouraging, unifying, and that remains faithful to its nature and calling in the life of the believer and to its calling to build God’s kingdom around the world through the proclamation of His holy and inerrant Word.
• A passionate commitment to more effective evangelism and discipleship in the local church, especially through households, which biblically includes so-called “nuclear families,” singles, single-parent families, and empty nesters.
• A simplified ministry structure of relationships in the church that the Bible indicates are to have household qualities about them.
• A unified focus on the participation of and blessing to the entire church body including: nuclear families, single parent families, singles, empty nesters, youth, children (including those who are Christians but whose parents may not have made a profession of faith).
• A meticulous and unwavering emphasis on the gospel of Jesus Christ as the means of and power for inward transformation in the life of the believer and for the work of evangelism and discipleship.
• An unapologetic belief that nearly any church can begin to implement this vision with grace and unity.
Since the release of the book, Uniting Church and Home: A Blueprint for Rebuilding Church Community, God has seen fit to use 20,000 copies (including a Korean translation) to play a role in stirring the hearts of church leaders and heads of households toward greater reformation—both in the local church and the households which collectively make up those churches.
This Guide supplements this original, largely vision-oriented book by providing clear instruction for how churches with a wide range of personalities can begin to implement the vision, right where they are, with grace and unity. The Guide also presents a variety of approaches for this process in simple, systematic applications that are easy to understand, remember, and communicate to others. For a comprehensive overview of this Guide, please read the author’s introduction here.
The Institute continues to assist church leaders through its resources, IUCAH leader’s network (which meets quarterly in Richmond, VA), seminars, conferences, and church retreats. The Institute is perhaps best-noted for its personal, encouraging, and individualized assistance to church leaders and households nationwide.