Welcome

My main concern with ministry is getting people into their proper spots to use their gifts more effectively.  Also, trying to keep churches from envying larger congregations and instead just concentrate on being Biblical.  If a congregation can achieve that, it will grow naturally and won't need an unbiblical church fad to accomplish it.  

Johnny Cox

My Story

​At age 8 my family moved to Kentucky from Indiana.  A lady across the street put me on a visitation list at her local church. Soon afterward, two young guys came by and shared the gospel with my family. I became a Christian. 
 
I began attending that same church every time it opened its doors. I went by myself, as my parents never took faith very seriously.  We moved multiple times but I continued to go to church on my own. It was many a new town where I looked in the phone book, called a local church and asked if they had a bus to pick me up.  
 
During high school a friend asked me to visit his church and later go to church camp. Camp had an amazing effect on me. When we got back I instituted Bible studies at our high school and the junior high school.  It was during this time I began preaching, speaking at age 16 at a jail during a visit from our church camp.
 
At 19 I entered Bible college and immediately began preaching and doing youth ministry in various churches near Cincinnati in the early 90's.  
 
After a few years, I left college and attempted to enter "normal life" working in my home town. Professional ministry seemed to have very little to do with the church of the New Testament, so I decided it was not for me. God though, still seemed to have a calling for my life and because my co workers kept telling me "you should be a preacher" I looked into it again. 
 
Thus began a ministry in rebuilding small congregations.  I have assisted with church splits, churches with no youth or young adults, liberalism, legalism, Elderless churches,  music wars, "wolves", immorality in the leadership, and apathy.  With each experience I’ve had differing levels of success yet gained more and more wisdom.  When I offer a suggestion to a church, it is for good reason, not an untested theoretical.​

​Philosophy of Ministry

Jeremiah 6:16
"Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, And ask for the old paths, where the good way is, And walk in it; Then you will find rest for your souls." 

In my quest to restore the New Testament Church I have been moving along these older paths:
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• Home churches were the original format and template of the New Testament Church.  When issues arise, revert to the more basic NT pattern.  Keep church simple.
• Immersion is an essential part of the salvation experience and needs to be re-implemented into conversions.
• Jesus is already upon his throne  and is already ruling his Kingdom:  The Church!
• That some spiritual gifts were only for a short time and only to establish the New Testament Church.
• The restoration of Elderships and the training up of Elders, not just Preachers.  Essentially to rid the church of the one bishop or “Pastor System” and bring back the informed plurality of Elders.
• To quit putting the hopes of the church into new buildings and expensive Bible College educations.
• That Genesis teaches a 6 day Creation, and we should as Luther observed, argue why God took so long, instead of contending that He must of took much longer.

​If we could walk along these original paths as they still lead to the truth, yet “pave” them to make them more accessible for the present generation, it would be a worthy mission!  You are invited to join me!