Listening before building.
There is no finished church model waiting to be installed. I am meeting people, learning the community, and exploring what a locally formed Congregational fellowship might become.
Why “harvest,” not “plant” →Rev. Michael “Chip” Smith · Springfield, Virginia
You do not have to
pretend here.
I’m a minister, writer, and person in recovery exploring how God’s uncontrolling love helps us tell the truth, repair relationships, and begin again.
Grace for a life still becoming.
GraceRelationshipNew beginnings
At the center
Love invites. Love draws. Love transforms.
Begin where you are
Three ways into the work.
Choose the part of the work that brought you here. Each page offers a clearer next step.
01
The Firsts Project
A couples workbook—and a growing philosophy—about remembering, reclaiming, and creating a shared life.
Explore Firsts → 02A Church Harvest
A Luke 10 invitation to listen, form relationships, and explore a covenantal NACCC community in Northern Virginia.
Learn about the harvest → 03Ministry & Speaking
Preaching, recovery-informed conversation, weddings, memorials, workshops, and pastoral presence for real life.
View ministry offerings →
The Book of Firsts
Keep choosing each other on purpose.
A guided workbook for couples who want to remember where they have been, reclaim what matters, and create firsts that do not exist yet.
Discover the book →Amazon link coming soon
Writing in public, one honest thought at a time.
Substack will be the ongoing home for essays about grace, recovery, relationships, faith, and the places where God meets ordinary life.
Visit the reflections page →A call that changed shape
2026Life did not follow the plan I imagined.
I returned to church because I needed community. That return led me back into ministry, through the completion of my M.Div., and toward ordination. Then love redirected the path from Wisconsin to Springfield, Virginia.
I arrived without an inherited institution or a guaranteed position—only a conviction that God was already at work and that the next faithful step was to pay attention.
Read the fuller story →What holds it together
A faith rooted in uncontrolling love.
I believe God meets us with love that invites rather than coerces and draws rather than controls. Thomas Jay Oord gives this conviction a name: amipotence.
Present for real life
Ministry that begins with listening.
For churches, couples, families, recovery communities, and people navigating beginnings, endings, questions, and change.
An open invitation
There may be a conversation
worth beginning.
Reach out about the book, a ministry inquiry, the Northern Virginia church harvest, recovery, or something that does not fit a category yet.