For now, “us” is the Kraus family, but we are praying for four more families to join us in planting a kingdom minded church in North Carolina, a church where the testimony of Jesus is seen in our love for each other and for others outside the Kingdom of God.
Many times it is helpful in getting to know someone if we know where they came from. So let me share some of my (Mark’s) story with you. I was born into a fairly devout Catholic family, and baptized as an infant. My parents sent me to Catholic school for twelve years. I performed all of the requirements of the Catholic church but was still far from God, being a slave to sin.
In 1990 at the age of eighteen at a very low place in my life that I repented of my sinful life and surrendered my life to Jesus. I was filled with peace and joy. My theology however, had to catch up to my experience as I was not familiar with the word of God. As a newborn baby I desired God’s word though only later did I learn that I had been born again.
I eventually left the Catholic church and was re-baptized in an Assembly of God church which I attended for some time. I was introduced to many of the teachings of the Pentecostal movement and though I was a zealous young man with not much discipleship, the Holy Spirit was faithful in keeping me from false teachings.
I got involved in the pro life movement and met others who were as well and had the God and Country theology. Eventually some of those decided to start a home fellowship group which I joined. I left the university and started working for one of the brothers as a painter. The group had plans to move to rural TN from Florida and I saved up money to buy land there as well. After moving to TN I built a cabin on my land and in the process of visiting a town near my own town I met my first Anabaptists.
This group was a sect of the Amish that lived more communally and was more mission minded. It was there that I learned of the distinctions that separate the Anabaptists from the Protestants, such as Non-conformity to the world, Non-Resistance(suffering love), Modesty, Non-participation in Gov., not voting, Rejection of Divorce and Remarriage, Non swearing of Oaths, in short the two kingdom theology that Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount which was meant to be lived out today.
I heard and was challenged with many truths that would cost me relationships in the home fellowship I was a part of. I took those to the Lord in prayer and fasting with an open heart desiring to be taught by the Lord from His word. God confirmed the truth of His word to my heart.
While appreciating the people at the community I did not think the non-electric lifestyle necessary to live the Christian life. I therefore sought out others who had a similar theology. In 1997 I found Grace Christian Fellowship in Woodbury, TN, one of the original “Remnant” (Charity) churches.
I met the young woman there who was to be my bride and after our hands off courtship we were married in 1999. We sought the Lord about our life’s direction concerning the foreign mission field and we explored Honduras but did not feel called there.
Sometime later we felt called to Turkey and found a church in NC where there had been some interest in the work there. We moved to North Carolina to be a part of Cleveland Believers Fellowship and were blessed by the church to go to Turkey were we spent a little over two years. While in Turkey our church multiplied and when we came back we joined the church closest to where we lived.
We eventually left that church and joined the other sister church and have been members of Harmony Believers Fellowship for ten years. My wife Charity and I (Mark) have been blessed with eleven children from twenty two years old to six months. I am so thankful to God that our five oldest children are following the Lord Jesus and growing in grace.
Now we feel called to start a new work, a church that desires to bring people into communion with God and community with the people of God, an intentional community of those who desire the accountability, and “one anothering” of the New Testament and to be and make disciples.
We, having eternal life according to John 17:3, and knowing the goodness of God that brought us to repentance, are compelled by the love of Christ to share his Gospel with others.
Also, being informed of the Judgment and knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men. 2Co 5:11
We have the same desire as our Father who said, “Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Luke 14:23
For more details about how that “looks” see the vision statement of Koinonia Christian Fellowship.