Anyone wishing to be involved with the Church in the Center is welcome to join us at our community groups meeting in our members’ homes to build relationships, pray for each other and our city, and to explore the Bible’s answers for life. If you are interested in getting involved with one of these community groups, please let us know and we’ll give you the details.

The Church in the Center meets for public worship services each Sunday at 10:30 AM on the 3rd floor at the Marriott Texas Medical Center. Click here for details on parking and directions.

More information about Community Groups here
More information about Sunday worship services here

The Church in the Center desires to be a community of believers that has open doors to all people from various denominational backgrounds. Believers from any religious tradition and also non-believers are welcome in our services and community groups. Our official denominational affiliation is with the Southern Baptist of Texas Convention. We believe the SBTC is a great organization and is doing much in Texas and around the world to serve humanity and spread God’s love. We are also affiliated on the local level with the Union Baptist Association. While these are our primary affiliations, we are open to partnering with other Christian faith groups to accomplish the common goal of serving our community.

We envision several key areas of ministry. The first and main one will be our weekly corporate worship gathering. The time and place of this service will be announced closer to the launch date. The style of this worship service will be contemporary and it will incorporate media, the arts, relevant messages, and personal reflection into our time of worship. A second ministry will be our Community Groups. These small groups of people will meet in homes weekly to provide friendship, prayer support, Bible study, and a forum for finding real answers to your questions about faith and life. Community Groups will be the primary place where relationships are formed and discipleship occurs.

Another area of ministry we envision in our future is ‘Shift Change Fellowships’ These gatherings will be opportunities for worship and Bible study that meet at key times in strategic places to connect with today’s busy health-care professionals. The Church in the Center will also offer children’s ministries in conjunction with our main weekly worship service.

We want to be a church that is actively involved in community service. We will strongly encourage our members to give of their time to volunteer in one of the many excellent institutions of the medical center area who are making a real difference in the lives of families. We will also be actively involved in missions both locally and globally. We plan to take regular trips to various destinations around the world to meet both humanitarian and spiritual needs. Upcoming service opportunities will be posted on the website.

At The Church in the Center, we will offer quality child care for kids from carefully screened and trained caregivers. Our kids are one of the most precious gifts in our lives and we will treat yours the same. Also, please know that while child care will be available, it will not be mandated. If you would like for your infant or child to stay with you during the worship service, that is perfectly acceptable and welcomed. We will view the presence of kids in our services as a blessing, not a distraction. More details about our Children’s Ministry is available on Sunday mornings at the Info Desk.

As a new church, we are accountable to our sponsor churches and denominational entities. Each month, reports are submitted to the authorities in these organizations to ensure financial integrity on the part of The Church in the Center. We also have a very thorough internal accounting system to ensure that every dollar is accounted for and allocated properly. When you give to The Church in the Center, you will receive an annual contribution report (for IRS deduction purposes) and you will have access to budget information to see where we spend and give our funds. Also, The Church in the Center will have a policy from day one of giving away more than 10% of our income to missional charities.

We have multiple community groups open and anyone looking for a place to connect to build relationships, receive prayer support, and explore the Bible together are welcome to join us. By this fall, we hope to launch our main public worship service and will be inviting everyone we know and the community at large to come and visit our new church. In addition, there will be opportunities in the near future to join in on some community service projects. You can stay informed on upcoming opportunities on this website both on Ben's Blog and on the Upcoming Events page.

More information about Community Groups here
More information about Sunday worship services here

The primary doctrinal statement of the Church in the Center is the most current edition of the Baptist Faith and Message. http://www.sbc.net/bfm/bfm2000.asp) While this confession serves as our guiding doctrinal position, we also appreciate and find beauty in other historic confessions such as The Apostle’s Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the London Baptist Confession.

A lot of people ask the question, why start a church in a city that already has a lot of great churches. This is a really good question that needs to be addressed. While it seems that there are a lot of churches in Houston and that there are plenty to choose from, the reality is that the demographical picture necessitates many more churches. Houston is rapidly growing both numerically and culturally.

To adequately serve such a massive and diverse populous, many more churches of all types will be needed. A fact to this point is that over the last 100 years in American history, the church-to-population ratio has actually fallen in half, and in Houston alone, some strategist suggest that we are at least 600 churches behind the population curve. So our vision is to be a part of a church planting movement to provide many more quality churches to serve a rapidly transforming and expanding city.