The movement
Small groups that start themselves, build for the Kingdom, and grow together.
GLORi Builders is a model for Christian technology groups. We keep the core small and firm: the faith, five principles, a minimum stack, the brand, and an honest money path. Everything else belongs to the crews.
Five principles
A group that keeps these is a recognized GLORi Builders Crew.
Every other choice belongs to the crew.
- 1
Free to join, free to gather.
No dues to belong. Ministry projects cost the church nothing.
- 2
Open to every believer who wants to build.
Men and women, from day one. No experience required: beginners, engineers and product people build side by side. Each crew chooses to be men's, women's or mixed.
- 3
Ship together, in the open.
Crews meet weekly, in person or online, and every session ends with something shown: a demo, a merged PR, a deploy. Each crew posts its progress to the network ship log monthly.
- 4
Led by servants, handed on well.
Leaders are builders, not appointees: no title or certificate needed. Crew and hub leaders serve a set term, train a successor and hand over in the open. No one holds a role forever, and every role has someone being prepared to take it.
- 5
Begin and end in prayer.
Every gathering opens by committing the work to God (the Builder's Prayer or the crew's own words) and closes in the Upper Room: what we shipped, who we served, who needs help, and what we're giving.
Guardrails
Few and firm.
The test for every rule: does it protect the faith, the people, the customers or the brand's trust?
Statement of faith: the Apostles' Creed
Short, historic and shared across denominations. Crews hold their own church traditions on everything beyond it.
I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, he is seated at the right hand of the Father, and he will come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian Church,* the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.
* The historic text reads “the holy catholic Church.” “Catholic” means universal: the whole body of believers across every tradition, not one denomination. We use “Christian,” as Lutheran and many Protestant churches do, so the meaning reads plainly. Nothing is taken away. Otherwise this is the ecumenical English text (ELLC, 1988).
Adults, with youth through the church
Crews are for adults (18+), under a code of conduct. Youth take part only through a church: a youth crew is part of a church's own youth program, meets at the church's facility, and is overseen by an official church employee under the church's own child-protection policy.
An ethics floor
No gambling, adult content, predatory lending or dark patterns. Customer data is protected and never sold. Honest claims about AI.
Transparency
Each crew posts a monthly ship log, and money and giving are reported openly.
The Builder's Prayer
Lord, send Your builders from the north, the south, the east and the west. Give us wisdom to build world-class work that shows Your love and Your extravagant generosity, and discernment to choose what we should and should not build. Build in us radical obedience and dependence on Your Holy Spirit, so that every venture bears the mark of Your Spirit and our success is measured by Kingdom impact and nothing less. Help us work heartily, as for You and not for men. Take our glory and return it as Yours. Amen.
Crews may open with it or pray in their own words.
Names
One name for each role.
Each name is clear to a newcomer and true to Scripture. Biblical figures are the stories we teach behind the roles, not titles, and the names work equally for men and women.
- Four pillars
- Build · Belong · Believe · Give
- Described as Craft, Community, Christ and Generosity.
- Group
- Crew
- A crew builds together, in person or online.
- Weekly gathering
- Build Night
- Plain on purpose: it's what we actually do.
- Crew leader
- Crew Lead
- Leads by working alongside, the way the wall went up: “each opposite his own house” (Nehemiah 3).
- Hub leader
- Hub Lead
- Takes up the Nehemiah charge: “Let us rise up and build” (Nehemiah 2:18). Vision and encouragement, not authority.
- Senior mentor and reviewer
- Master Builder
- “As a wise master builder I laid a foundation, and another builds on it” (1 Corinthians 3:10). Their pattern is Bezalel, filled with skill and “the ability to teach” (Exodus 35:30–35).
- Successor in training
- Apprentice
- Every leader raises their Timothy: “entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2).
- Project owners
- Stewards
- “It is required of stewards that they be found faithful” (1 Corinthians 4:2).
- Closing prayer of each session
- Upper Room
- Where the first believers devoted themselves to prayer together (Acts 1:13–14).
- Quarterly handover
- Commissioning
- “They laid their hands on them and sent them off” (Acts 13:3).
- Leadership track
- Builder's Path
- Build · Abide · Lead · Send.
The Builder's Path
Build
Craft and the stack.
Colossians 3:23
Abide
Integrity, stewardship, Sabbath and rest from the screen.
John 15:5
Lead
Lead a Build Night, then a crew.
Mark 10:43–45
Send
Raise your Apprentice, hand over on schedule, fork a new crew.
Matthew 28:19
Commissioning
Handing on well.
- Every leader names an Apprentice, their Timothy (2 Timothy 2:2), at the start of their term, and that person leads alongside them for the last quarter.
- Handovers happen on a fixed calendar, at the quarterly demo day, in the open, with prayer and commissioning. Nobody has to fight to step up or be pushed out.
- Crews confirm their own leaders; the hub's Crew Leads confirm the Hub Lead.
- Staggered terms mean a crew or hub never loses all its leaders at once.
- After two terms, a leader steps out of that role for at least a year. They can lead another crew, maintain projects or serve as a Master Builder in the meantime. Fresh leaders come through, and good ones aren't lost.
They laid their hands on them and sent them off.Acts 13:3
The right to fork
Forking a crew is how the movement grows.
Anyone may start a new crew without asking permission: if they keep the five principles, they're in. When a crew passes about 15 builders, it's encouraged to split in two, as a church plants a new congregation.
Ministry tools are open to every builder to fork and improve. A fork keeps “Built by GLORi Builders” only while it keeps the five principles; “GLORi Verified” and above must be earned again by review. This keeps forking free without diluting trust.
Forking is the answer to disagreement. Paul and Barnabas parted and the work doubled (Acts 15:39–40). People are free to go another way, and to keep the GLORi name if they keep the principles.