Our Story

The Alton Mission exists because of what God is doing in the world he loves so much. That’s the big story we fit into, which gives who we are meaning and coherence. It’s the story of the gospel. About our inability to find our way back to God and about God’s plan from the beginning of time to come and save us. About how God brought us back to himself and about how he brought us back to ourselves. About how God came to live among us as Jesus Christ and now lives within us as the Holy Spirit. And about how God is at work writing all creation into that story.

If this story isn’t true, we don’t make sense as a community. We’ve staked everything about who we are on this story.

Our little role in that story goes something like this: Our community was called into God’s work to restore Alton and bring peace to our neighbors in October 2010. The leaders of Emmanuel Free Methodist Church, a congregation that had served the gospel in Alton for over 100 years, discerned a call to shine light into dark places. Everything since then has been our best attempt to faithfully respond to God’s invitation.

We decided to plant a church in the heart of Alton. As we became reacquainted with our city, we felt drawn to those people most church plants don’t target: the poor and those who would never respond to an invitation to “come to church” on Sunday morning no matter how cool the program was. So we adopted a missional community / house church structure to help us be the church among our neighbors. We launched our first Restore Community in September 2011. By September 2012 we had three Restore Communities and started a Sunday morning worship gathering to keep our communities connected to one another.

Our calling is not to certain tasks, activities, or programs. Our calling isn’t primarily about a particular way of being the church (some kind of “model”). Our calling is to an identity. We are children of God. As our identity is restored in the image of God, we gain greater and greater freedom to do what we are. Our being determines our doing. Or as Jesus said, “First clean the inside of the cup, then the outside will be clean as well.”

Central to our understanding of God is St. John’s statement, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” In perfect freedom, God does exactly what he is. God does not love because it’s the right thing to do or because it is most effective at getting what he wants. God loves because God is love. What God does flows from who God is.

So our aim and our story is to be restored in the image of God, to have love be the core of who we are and drive all that we do. We love because God first loved us, which quite naturally means we seek to love in the way we have been loved. When we love our city like that, we believe God dwells in that love and writes the story of the gospel here and now.

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Restore Communities

“Come to church” is no longer good news to most of our neighbors in Alton. So the mantra of the Alton Mission is not “Come think about Jesus like us,” but “Go be Jesus to them.” Our approach is missional (“Go”) and incarnational (“Be Jesus”), so we organize ourselves into Restore Communities that plant themselves around our city so we can dwell among our neighbors. (We chose the name in part to acknowledge the influence of and connection to Austin New Church.)

The Restore Community is our primary expression of what it means to be the church, so each community is called to love God, love one another, and love neighbor. Where communion, community, and mission integrate, the kingdom of God draws near.

Each community creates a covenant in which we commit our lives to one another, not just our time or money or services. The covenant names the particular calling we’ve discerned from God–who we’re called to bless, how we’ll live out the gospel together, and who is going to lead. This becomes the basis for accountability and also aids in decision making. [link to more information about the covenant coming soon!]

A typical Restore Community meets twice a month for a community gathering in which they connect with one another, study Scripture, pray, and celebrate communion. The two other weeks in the month are focused outward, participating in what God is doing in the lives of neighbors. Most communities choose an organization to partner with in order to serve each month, but we also like to throw parties and just hang out with our neighbors.

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Alton Mission Worship

Our Restore Communities gather for worship every Sunday at 10:30am at the YWCA in Alton (304 E 3rd St.).

Perhaps you’re asking, “What do you do?” To which we like to reply, “Snake handling and interpretive dance.” But since that’s not helpful, here’s the real answer. Our calling is incarnational mission, which means, “Go be Jesus to Alton.” The worship gathering equips us for our calling by forming us into Christ’s body and then sending us into the city to bless our neighbors.

So the first and most important answer to the question, “What do you do?” is this: “We let God work in us.”

Being formed into Christ’s body is not a human accomplishment, it is an act of God. What God does is most important, and our side of the work is participating in the activity of his Holy Spirit.

We are not just a community that takes the sacraments, we are a sacramental community. It’s not primarily about what we are doing, but what God is doing in and through us. We become a sacrament to our city, a visible sign of the invisible God. We are the body of Christ. We are the loaf of bread on the communion table. Like the communion bread, we are taken, blessed, broken, and given. Jesus brings us together, forms us in the gospel, unites us with his sacrifice, and sends us out as fresh bread for hungry souls.

Now, we get to be active participants, so there’s work for us to do. Here’s a look at what we do to participate in what God is doing:

Taken: We gather together in worship.

Focus: Belonging to Jesus and to one another.
Looks like: Singing and praying in one voice, greeting one another

Blessed: We listen to the word of God.

Focus: Believing in Jesus.
 Looks like: Testimony, scripture readings, sermon, creed, and thanksgiving

Broken: We share in the Lord’s table.

Focus: Becoming like Jesus.
Looks like: Prayer, communion, and worship.

Given: We scatter to bless our neighbors.

Focus: Becoming Jesus to our city.
Looks like: Commission, worship, and benediction.

Leading Worship Leading worship is a community effort, with Restore Communities rotating worship leading responsibilities. This entails coming early to setup and pray for the service, as well as leading prayer times, reading scripture, giving testimonies, and serving communion during the service.

We place a high value on children participating as much as possible in everything we do. But there is wisdom in not forcing a three year old to “sit” through a sermon. So we have everyone together during the singing at the beginning of the service, then at greeting time children younger than kindergarten-age go to an adjacent room. Those children come back in to take communion with us and be commissioned to go be good news.

Most of what we’ve mentioned is familiar, but here are some familiar things we don’t have:

Announcements: Since Restore Communities are the main thing, the Alton Mission is limited to weekly worship gathering, quarterly service projects, and leader development. There isn’t anything to announce, except when we shut down the worship gathering to do a service project.
Greeters or Ushers: There are no bulletins to hand out, for one. But since the worship gathering is not intended to be the place to attract new people, we expect that most new people will be coming with one of us. If other new people come, it is everyone’s responsibility to give them a gracious welcome.
Offering: We have a box people can put their tithes and offerings in, but no “pass the plates” moment. This is somewhat related to having no ushers.

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Mission and Values

Our mission is to love God, love people, and teach others to do the same (i.e., make disciples).

We find it helpful to speak about three great loves: love for God, love for one another, and love for neighbor. These three kinds of relationships shape three identities in us:

UP: We are disciples of Jesus
IN: We are family
OUT: We are missionaries

These three identities guide our decisions. So when we consider how we should live and work in our city we ask, “What would a missionary do?” Or when we are deciding how to organize a community gathering we ask, “What would a family do?” Asking these questions helps make sure that what we do is shaped by who we are.

We also have some core values that guide us. These are our best attempts to name what God seems to be doing in and through us, the unique imprint of the Holy Spirit on our church:

Mission: We remind ourselves often that the people of God have always existed for the sake the world. Abraham was blessed so that he would be a blessing, and that calling marks the family of God to this day. Our approach is to re-neighbor our city. As missionaries, we are the presence of Jesus in our city. Our incarnational mission is “go be Jesus to them,” not “come think about Jesus like us.” The growth of our church is tied to the missionary activity of our people, not to marketing or programming.
Participation: We want to have a deep life together in God that overflows into our city. Participation in the New Testament sense means complete sharing. It’s our desire for lavish communion with God, generous fellowship with one another, and cheerful solidarity with our neighbors. And it’s full participation of everyone–all ages, genders, classes, races, etc.–in worship, community, and mission.
Beauty: St. John writes, “When Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” In the transformative beauty of our savior, we will become what we behold. The Christian life is conducted in wonder and awe; all theology is really just prayer and all doctrine is really just doxology. The world is held together by the delight of God. Being restored in God’s image, we become creators and not consumers. Our task is to make things beautiful through art, service, friendship, worship, construction, planning–anything that brings order out of chaos and life out of death.
Peace: We are creators and not destroyers. We’ve been given a ministry of reconciliation. Alton has a checkered history when it comes to civil rights, and a present struggle with racial and economic divisions, alienation, abandonment, and loneliness. We have been called to put off violence and put on peace, as individuals, families, and communities.

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Leadership

Staff: Peter Hough is a native of Kansas City, MO, who met his wife, Stephanie, at Truman State University. He received his MDiv from Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, CA. After eight years in the Los Angeles area, the Houghs moved to Alton, IL, in the summer of 2010 so that Peter could serve as Associate Pastor at Emmanuel Free Methodist Church. The Alton Mission was launched by Emmanuel in 2011 and Peter was commissioned to lead it.

Peter sees his primary calling as keeping people attentive to what God is doing. This calling expresses itself in contemplation, writing, and preaching; in developing leaders; and in leading the Alton Mission to connect with God in worship and mission.

Board of Administration: The Alton Mission’s Board reflects our basic structure as a network of Restore Communities (or missional communities or house churches…). So our Board consists of our Restore Community leaders plus at least one other member who serves as our Delegate to keep us connected to the wider Free Methodist family.

Deacons: Our Deacons are leaders who have been intentionally developed and consecrated by the community to lead in a variety of ways within the church, including leading Restore Communities, music, children, service, etc. Raising up and releasing leaders is one of the Alton Mission’s primary tasks.

Preachers: The gospel and the Scriptures have been entrusted to the church. While some are called to a unique ministry of word and table (preaching and administering the sacraments), preaching the gospel is the task of all Christian community. Therefore, preaching in Alton Mission worship gatherings is handled by a team of people who are gifted for this task and who discern together what God is saying to our church.

Interns: The Alton Mission is committed to raising up leaders and welcomes the opportunity to walk alongside interns who are discerning God’s call. If you are interested in an internship with us, please let us know.

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Sermons

Preaching in the Alton Mission is a community practice.

We have an amazing group of people who share the listening, studying, and preaching load together. We also believe that the whole community is active in discerning the voice of God through the Scriptures and the sermon. We therefore offer recordings of our sermons here hoping they will be helpful, but with this counsel: Listen actively and in community. The sermon loses some of its communal and sacramental character when extracted from the community-at-worship. It remains a dead relic until a community actively takes it up again.

You can subscribe to our sermons as a podcast. Here’s how to get the sermons delivered to you:

From your computer: In iTunes go to File > Subscribe to Podcast and type https://altonmission.com/category/sermons/feed/.
On your tablet or phone:
A. Click on this link https://altonmission.com/category/sermons/feed/
B. Or on your phone or tablet download and open the Podcasts app, then tap “Search” and type in https://altonmission.com/category/sermons/feed/.

Listen on our website by going to the sermon feed here: altonmission.com/sermons. (Each sermon is a separate post that goes in order from the most recent to the oldest.)

For sermon series we have already finished, it may be easier to go the sermon archives. The sermons are grouped by series and put in chronological order. For some series, there are even supporting resources.

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Kids

Almost half of the people in our community are children and youth. One of our core values is participation and from the beginning this has applied especially to the children. Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to them.” And recent research tells us that segregating by age can have a negative impact on children’s formation in the faith.

We aim to include the children in everything we do: communion, community, and mission. Here’s how that looks:

Family: Every family makes spiritual practices a priority of their family life together. This is the single most important factor in whether a young adult will develop a strong personal connection to God.

Restore Community: Discipling children is a community responsibility, but it can be messy and difficult. Each community has the freedom to work out how they will disciple children and youth, asking the question, “What would a family do?” Sometimes this means changes to the structure and length of the gathering, hiring a babysitter, or the men teaching the kids while the women delve deeper into prayer and discussion (and vice versa). It also means changes in mission. Sometimes our work is slower so that the children can work with us and grow in the image of Christ with us. And sometimes the children open up new avenues of mission for us.

Alton Mission worship: Children are welcome to participate in the whole worship service. During the sermon children five and under are gathered for play and teaching, but for the rest of our time together everyone participates. This includes songs, prayers, and communion. There is no minimum age requirement for any of these community practices.

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Contact

There are several ways to connect with us.

Worship:
Sundays @ 10:30am
YWCA
304 E 3rd St. in Alton

Common Meal right after worship around noon.

Email:
altonmission@gmail.com

Business Address for mail or checks:
Alton Mission
c/o The Bridge Church
504 E. 12th St.
Alton, IL 62002

(Sorry, we don’t have a phone line. We know… our bank thinks it’s weird too.)

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News

Come here for recent news and announcements. (altonmission.com/category/news)

Our calendar below shows the various goings on in the life of our church. [coming soon!]

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Blog and Resources

From time to time we post thoughts, articles, links, etc. that we hope will enrich the life and ministry of our church. You can go here to peruse those posts, which go in order from the most recent to the oldest.

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