Via grows out of a conviction that has laid hold of us over our decades of experience in the church and nonprofit worlds: the demands of ministry are often the greatest enemy of the one, indispensable responsibility of Christian leadership - tending to our own formation.

Via creates space to attend to life with God, explore questions together, and give shape to emerging possibilities. Our starting point is listening to your story, the people and places you serve, and what God may be inviting.

Our spaces and invitations gather around three images:

• The Well | The work of cultivation: Spiritual direction, guided retreats, and formation cohorts for a deeper, more reflective life.
• The Lantern | The work of illumination: Vocational discernment, learning circles, and discovery and development experiences for fresh imagination and learning.
• The Path | The work of navigation: Project design, sabbatical and pilgrimage planning, and fostering partnership and collaboration for new horizons and faithful experimentation.

Whether you are longing for greater depth, navigating a season of discernment, or sensing a new possibility in your ministry, we would love to walk alongside you.

In Mark 12 Jesus was asked what the most important thing about life is.

He replied that the most important thing about life is learning to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself.

Taking Jesus as his word, the Common Life Church Collective endeavors to cultivate communities of people who are intent on sharing in common rhythms and practices that provide a way to live this out.

These communities, sometimes called microchurches because they embody all the essential features of church while intentionally remaining the size of extended families, ground their life together in rhythms of prayer, rest, study, and work and then seek to discern what their shared expressions and practices of worship, community, and mission will be.

Feel free to drop us a line if you're interested in visiting a common life church or in starting one of your own. We'd love to help!

Together, we’re pursuing holistically flourishing communities throughout Stark County with the Body of Christ fully engaged in the process of transformation.

Stark CCDA was founded by the collaborative efforts of First Church of the Resurrection, First Mennonite, Radial Church, and Lighthouse Ministries.

To begin this work, these groups submitted and were awarded a planning grant from the Stark Community Foundation (The Polly Hoover Connelly and Lawrence E. Connelly, Jr. Fund & The William K. and Lotte E. Wilson Philanthropic Fund) in the summer of 2021.