Our Story
The origin story of AOX is actually a very small part of the story that God has been writing with His people over time. Our beginning happened as the lives of a handful of twentysomethings and some church planters began to intersect in Grove City, a small community in western Pennsylvania, at the crossroads of I-79 and I-80. There was a common commitment to following Jesus into a lifestyle of prayer and mission and an emphasis on reaching and serving college students and recent graduates that drew that initial core group of people together.
Brad and Adriane McKoy were church planters that had been training college students and recent graduates to follow Jesus, make disciples and plant simple expressions of church on college campuses and in communities around the United States. After reading the biblical story of the church at Antioch, they believed that God was leading them to plant a local church community that would serve as a sending base for the spiritual family of students that they had been serving.
In 2009, they moved to Grove City to pursue seeing that vision become a reality. As they did this, they began to connect with others that shared a similar vision for following Jesus and making disciples. Together with their mentors, Jim and Jan Erb, they began to meet regularly to share meals, pray, worship and study the Scripture.
In early 2011, that core group recognized that the way that they were following Jesus was an expression of what the Bible calls church. After prayer and receiving encouragement from trusted friends and elders, AOX (the Antioch Overflow Experiment) was established as a church in April of 2011.
As AOX was formed, it was with a commitment to invest in the spiritual formation and practical training of those that would become a part of the church. A high value was placed on serving students and recent grads so that they would be ready to be sent out from AOX into the next season of their lives. This emphasis would become an important part of our early culture.
Our small church family served as a hub of relationships for student churches around the region and across the country. In addition to simple churches that met weekly, each month we would gather for Worship in the Grove, to seek the Lord together, hear stories of what God was doing, and get to know each other better.
Just a few months after officially launching AOX, Summer in the Grove was established as an internship for people who wanted to grow in what it meant to follow Jesus, make disciples, and live on mission. Our church culture was shaped by watching the ways that the gospel was working in our lives and in the lives of those from the community around us as we gave ourselves to learning to follow Jesus.
As our church family was forming, we recognized that we were serving as a prayer and missions base for people who did not necessarily feel called to vocational ministry. There was an emphasis on equipping creatives and entrepreneurs to live out the gospel as they followed Jesus and pursued the things God had placed in their hearts.
Over time, as our church began to grow, we began to recognize the need to focus on the long term formation of the indivuals that called AOX home. We began to investing more time and energy in helping people prepare for the next steps of life. This impacted the way we approached discipleship, causing us to focus more on spiritual formation and investing in leaders than on hosting large worship gatherings.
During this season, one of our leaders also sensed that God was inviting us to make the hub a home. This word spoke both to what God was doing in creating a safe place for people who needed space to heal and grow before they would be sent out, as well as making practical adjustments to the way we were doing things to make space for the young families that were forming in our midst. Both of these adjustments have remained an important part of what defines us as a church family.
We are humbled to have been a place of healing, restoration, and refreshment for people who have come to find rest in the shade of the community in Grove City. It is a grace that we value and want to steward well in the midst of a culture that is full of so many who are tired, hurting and disillusioned. While it was not what we had in mind when we started a "sending base," it has undeniably been a part of our journey with the Lord over the years.
Making space for families to form meant that we began to devote more time and energy to helping couples prepare for marriage and parenthood. Then, we would celebrate with them with the same vigor as we had celebrated those who were being sent to live out the gospel in cities around the country. In this season, we recognized the beauty of families being encouraged and empowered to live on mission together, whether on a faraway mission field or in the midst of the seemingly ordinary opportunities that arise in everyday life.
In many ways, these adjustments have meant that things have moved more slowly than we had originally envisioned, but valuing "home" has also created a deep commitment to relationships over time that has an equal impact on those who have been sent out, and on those who remain in Grove City.
As we have continued on the journey of learning what it means to follow Jesus together, we have experienced incredible joy and devestating loss. Coming together as spiritual family has made the sweet moments more fulfilling, and the painful ones more heart breaking.
The farther that we go together, the more we understand that learning to follow Jesus is an ongoing process. It has involved growing and stretching in ways that have been difficult and uncomfortable, but it has also led us into a deeper awareness of His worthiness and the privilege it is to share in His gospel.
Over the years, as we have gathered around those that we love, to pray for them and bless them as they are sent out to follow Jesus in far away places, we often experience a sense of real gratitude and deep sorrow in the same moment. We are genuinely grateful to God to see people grow and go on to the next season of life. We also feel the ache of a friend moving on.
This "sending" practice goes back to the story of the church in Antioch that has been shaping us throughout our journey as a church family. It was somewhat of a normal practice for the New Testament church to send people out to carry the good news of God's love, and then pray for them and support them as they went, waiting to receive them back and hear the stories of what God had done.
In becoming a sending family, we have often sent out our best leaders and closest friends. It defies any plan that we could come up with to grow a church, but it is a true part of what God has asked from us. It is a big part of who we are called to be.
In many ways, our journey together as a church has looked different than we imagined when we were getting started. What started primarily with some college students and recent graduates, and a handful of mentors has grown into a multigenerational church family. The "sent ones" now stretch out across the country, with a handful scattered in nations around the world.
As we move forward as a church, we still share in those core commitments that brought us together in the beginning. We want to empower everyday believers to follow Jesus together into a lifestyle of prayer and mission. We want to cultivate a clear sense of spiritual family that creates a space for each person to become who God created them to be, while fostering an environment where people are free to grow deep, healthy relationships with each other.
We continue to value discipling college students and others that we meet in the process of following Jesus. The changing dynamic of the make up of our church also means that we are passionate about raising the next generation to love and follow Jesus. As the children that are a part of our church begin to grow and cultivate their own relationships with God, in many ways, it reminds us that we are just at the beginning of our journey together with God and with each other.
As we fix our eyes on Jesus, and give ourselves to learning what it means to abide with Him, practice His ways, and re-present Him to the world around us, we do it with a sense of renewed and refreshed vision. Our prayer is that the way that we follow Jesus together will impact our neighbors and the nations as we continue to disciple, equip and release sons and daughters of the King to impact every sphere of society for the glory of God.
"You go faster alone, but you go farther together."
