The Cell Church ministry of Westminster, CO, celebrates Twenty Years of developing Champions for Christ.
Twenty years ago, Mark Walker and Quentin Valdois met while inmates in prison in Colorado. They shared a kindred desire to study God’s word and encouraged each other in their Christian walk.
Serving out their sentences and being transferred within different facilities helped develop first-hand perspectives on God’s providence, seeing His established church inside the prison walls where the Gospel is continually on display in the lives of those He has saved.
Ten years later, as returning citizens on the outside, they reunited to formally develop The Cell Church, based in Westminster, CO. Recognizing that regardless of which outside ministry might visit to witness inside to inmates,
it is the inmates whom God chooses to work through—the weak, despised, marginalized, disenfranchised, societal rejects-- to accomplish great things for His kingdom.
Mark and Quentin desired to lay a foundation and build infrastructure inside the prison walls to support these indigenous imprisoned leaders.
Recognizing ‘the least of these’ as the ones needed to champion the church of Christ and to shift the culture in their own prison communities.
The Cell Church is committed to identifying, disciplining, mentoring, educating, and supporting God-gifted current and former prisoners, equipping, and empowering them for Christian ministry.
They provide holistic leadership development for prisoners called to ministry including:
1. Mentoring students, one-on-one. Beyond providing correspondence courses, they challenge students by instructing them face-to-face.
2. Seminary-level academic ministry leadership training
3. Creating, publishing, recording, and displaying Christ-centered art produced within the prison churches.
In addition, their attention to reintegration for the previously incarcerated includes their friends and families who seek to live out their Christian faith and engage in their communities.
Recently they celebrated the wedding of Jeremy and Ashley Loyd, the first couple married in their ministry’s house church.
Jeremy, a parolee who writes for The Cell Church ministry newsletter, and his wife Ashley recently decided to pursue ministry training through The Cell Church’s satellite of TUMI (The Urban Ministry Institute).
In this video, they share why they decided to undertake this extensive training, and how it impacts their walk with Christ and vision for future ministry. For more information on The Cell Church and to offer support, visit: https://www.thecellchurch.org
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