Our Story

Regeneration is an independent congregation that began in 2014 as a collaborative effort of four United Methodist Churches intent on creating a new faith community for young adults in Trumbull County.

Regeneration was planted by First United Methodist Church in Warren, hosted by Otterbein United Methodist Church in Champion, and supported by Howland UMC and Grace UMC. We held our first public gathering on October 5, 2014. 

From the very beginning, Regeneration was intended to be a church laser-focused on discipleship and mission. In 2016, we began to make some significant shifts to bring this focus to the forefront of our life together. These shifts included:

• Instead of focusing mainly on attracting people to our Sunday services, we began focusing much more attention on the scattered church during the week.

• Instead of relying on our own strengths, excellence, and hard work, we began to embrace a mentality of “passion over polish,” opening up to our weakness and depending more on God.

• Instead of seeing discipleship as primarily learning the Bible, we began to focus just as much attention on putting into practice what the Bible says.

• We began to be open and grow in how God empowers us with spiritual gifts and the power of the Holy Spirit.

• We began to see our mission as both helping people be forgiven as well as helping people be set free from sickness, sadness, and suffering.

In June of 2021, Regeneration and Otterbein United Methodist Church joined to become Regeneration United Methodist Church. Otterbein was founded in 1911 in Warren, as men and women banded together to reach new people with the Good News of Jesus. Together, we are building a new legacy of risk-taking discipleship that, we pray, impacts generations yet unborn.

In July of 2023, Regeneration left the United Methodist Church and became Regeneration Church. While we appreciate our Methodist roots, we are a congregation composed of people with various faith backgrounds who are pursuing Jesus together as we rely on the grounding authority of Scripture and the living guidance of the Holy Spirit

We believe that God is calling us to pursue four frontiers, all the while becoming more intentional about focusing outward on the least, the last, and the lost in our neighborhoods and our networks. Those four frontiers are: 

• Becoming a Church that Transforms: We want to see people experience the fullness of life and joy Jesus promises through real transformation, not just intellectual growth.

• Becoming a Church that Gathers and Scatters: We want to leverage our homes as places of ministry, scattering across our region to form spiritual families on mission with Jesus.

• Becoming a Church that Does Justice and Loves Mercy: There are unique resources given to us by the Holy Spirit to address injustice in our city and our region; we want to leverage those resources and help the Good News of Jesus be heard and seen in our region. 

• Becoming a Church that Hungers for God: We want to be a church that wants God, not for the blessings He gives us or the things He does for us, but because He is worthy of wanting and following, no matter what.