Hello! We are Anthony and Kylie Watts. We've been married for nine years and have two sweet daughters, Lucy and Emmie.

 

We both grew up in Cape Girardeau, Missouri where we met at our home church, La Croix UMC. La Croix is where we both came to know Jesus, and where we first heard our individual calls to ministry.  We have been serving in ministry together since we met in 2008, and we moved to Wilmore, Kentucky in 2014 for Anthony to attend Asbury Seminary to get his Masters of Divinity.  While at seminary, Kylie worked as a hospice nurse in Lexington and Anthony graduated in 2018.

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Although we both knew God was calling us to Wilmore for Anthony to attend seminary, we had no idea what would come after graduation.  Our first few years at seminary we struggled to find a community of people where we felt truly known, and processed through some idols we realized we had regarding the church.  We went to every new church looking for what we could receive from it, whether that was perfect music, a moving sermon, or a cool meeting space.  It was in this time that God refined our vision of what church is, and gave us a desire for something more.

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We attended our first House Fellowship, lead by the founders of the Inspire Movement Dr. Phil and Samantha Meadows, in the fall of 2017.  It was through this House Fellowship and Fellowship Band that we grew in community with others who knew us deeply and still loved us.  We engaged in intentional conversation about our discipleship, interceded for one another, served one another, and encouraged each other through highs and lows.  We both experienced more growth in our relationship with Jesus than we ever had before, and we knew we could never go back to just attending a church service once a week.  We committed to working full time with Inspire at the end of 2017 and ended up working full time with them for 3 years.  During these 3 years we lived by faith to follow this call, raising our own living expenses, and lead a growing discipleship ministry in Wilmore and beyond.  We are truly "all in" to this way of life and are willing to count the cost to do what God has asked us to do.  As we church plant in STL, we will continue to stay connected with the Inspire Movement, and we are incredibly thankful for their mentorship and guidance in the past and going forward.

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House Fellowship and Fellowship Bands are just a means to an end, but that end is Jesus himself - and we wholeheartedly believe that Jesus is working and moving in people's lives if they just have the tools to see it.  We long to help others experience the joy that can come from authentic Christian community, and see our world transformed by a group of people sent from the power of the Holy Spirit.  This is our heart behind church planting, and we are confident in what God can do when a group of people seek him and follow his way of life.  We are so excited to be a part of what God is doing in St. Louis!