What has been labeled “church” is everywhere.

Conversations that help people see Jesus for who he is, are rare.

Lark is a playful, message-forward movement on a mission to change that.

Together, we publish unfiltered content and provide unhurried conversations to help people live free—with no strings attached.

Our vision is to build a global movement of conversationalists who help others live free—right where they are.

From what we have found, it’s he time we spend with people that scales, and it’s when people do this with others that the Church Jesus began spreads through everyday people.

And nothing can restrain this kind of movement!

 

  • Russ and Tony first discovered the word in the writings of the late theologian Robert Capon—who said “the gift of grace is not a reward for hard work or good behavior, it is a lark, a joke, a hilarious (one-way generosity): it is, in a word, a gift.”

    Drawing its secondary meaning from the high-flying songbird, the word “lark” refers to anything done out of “uninhibited freedom” or “mischievous playfulness.”

    To that end, LARK is a playful, mischievous, message-forward community that is serious about teaching people to live free, but not much else.

  • The weary, worn out, discouraged, disenfranchised, lonely, and maybe hoping. To start this mischief, we had to take a play out of Henry Ford’s playbook. In his words, “If I asked what people wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

    Seeing this, we build for the those who are open to what they really need. Because no one else is going to welcome Jesus’ invitation of death as a way of life.

  • It all stated in a bar on the Gulf of Mexico and a garage in Northwest Indiana. The founders, Russ and Tony, spent years pastoring + planting churches.

    But with most of society having no interest in a church gathering of any kind, and so many churches unwilling to let the gospel be as scandalous as it is, they resigned to start LARK.

    The heart from day one was simple: provide people with the resources and relationships they need to see—and keep seeing—Jesus for who he is.

    It’s in seeing Jesus for who he really is that we lean to live as people who are already free.

  • The Church is best defined as people who are learning to trust Jesus. It’s who you are, not somewhere you go.

    The Church gathered is best described as “unnamed friendships” where the conversation of grace is unconditional, the life of grace unhurried, and the spread of grace unlimited.

    There is nothing as formative as the celebration of the free around tables and scandalous conversations along the way. The key is trusting Jesus enough to let it be that simple.

  • We hold to the doctrines expressed in the Apostle's Creed in general, and specifically to the following:

    About Christ: Aware of humanity's perpetual love affair with performance, Jesus tells the most shocking stories of grace to level all our empires of progress. For both religious Pharisees with resumes and despondent tax-collecting outcasts, Jesus did the impossible. He reconciled all to God through His death and resurrection. This “Good News” is the invitation out of the exhausting madness of trying to hide the junk of our lives. We are free to be nothing in Christ.

    About Church: The mystery of the kingdom of God is like a dragnet being hauled to shore, catching everything in its path. It rejects nothing, Jesus said. One day this net will arrive on the beach, and the angels, not us, will determine what is and what is not. In the meantime, we are free to be what we are: a random sampling of the broken world that God has united himself to in Christ. To be the Church and pretend we are anything more would be false advertisement.

    About Change: We are conditional creatures. But only because we love the allure of control that lies with if/then transactions. We want a life of sight—not faith; a life that’s about here—not hope in a place to come; a life that offers lists to assure we’re okay—not a way of love that doesn’t compute. One is tidy, the other is messy. But only one is the life God has actually given us. Like branches on a Vine, we exist solely in the hands of a Vinedresser. Transformation is His work, not ours.

  • Yes. LARK is a licensed nonprofit, governed by a Board of Directors who are committed to helping people reimagine faith without religion. All donations to LARK are tax-deductible.

  • No. We have worked in and with denominations in the past, but eventually the need to measure, map, and manage an idea of progress becomes a hurdle to helping people live in the freedom of Jesus—right where they are.