Our Church
- Restoration Church is a family-friendly church in Murfreesboro, TN where we are committed to following Jesus together in community. We believe that relationship matters most – relationship with God and with each other. God has called us all into a meaningful, personal, life-changing relationship with Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. Along with that, God calls us into meaningful, personal, life-changing relationships with each other. We were never meant to follow Jesus alone.
- We believe that love defines our culture because Jesus said so. He said “by this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This sort of love is only lived out in real relationships with each other. This is the foundation of how we live out our faith
Our Mission
Restoration Church exists to make disciples of Jesus by restoring people to God, each other, and purpose.
Jesus has called His Church to be all about making disciples. And we believe that we are called to make disciples the same way He did: in relationship. Jesus didn’t rely on big group gatherings to teach people how to follow Him – He built deep, meaningful relationships with those that followed Him and then after He rose from the dead, they went on to do the same with others. We want to get back to following Jesus the way He modeled and intended. We believe that we were never meant to follow Jesus on our own and that as we follow Jesus as His disciples together we begin to understand our God-given purpose.
Our Core Values
We elevate love as the defining characteristic of our culture because that’s what Jesus did. As we abide in Christ, the fruit of that relationship is love (for God and each other). Jesus commands us to love God with our whole being and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Finally, the only characteristic that Jesus said would identify us as His disciples to the world is our love for one another.
God’s desire in our salvation and discipleship is that we would be restored to a proper relationship with Him and with one another. Since God values relationships, we will fight for relationships as we do life together, as we lead, and as we fulfill the mission of the church. We work to restore relationships in conflict rather than just solving the problem, which means we will give each other the benefit of the doubt by traveling light and staying curious . We show up and stay present by not hiding our hearts from each other or leaving things unsaid. Our events and programs will always emphasize the small over the large - creating places where relationships can be created and cultivated.
Twice in the Gospels, Jesus clearly states his mission by saying: “the Son of Man came to…”Here we find the mission that we are invited to join as Jesus says He came to “seek and save the lost” and to “serve and not be served.” We live this out by valuing, caring for, and sharing the gospel with those who don’t know Jesus, and pursuing those who have walked away from Him. We also actively love and serve our community with no strings attached.
Each individual is uniquely designed to carry out the mission of Jesus and His church. We believe that His church doesn’t have sidelines or bleachers - only a field where each person is called to play. So we create places to play and coach people along the way. Because we are free to fail we are able to learn on the field as opposed to the classroom. This allows and requires us to push past comfort zones into places of challenge where faith can grow.
We have fun because there is fullness of life in following Jesus. We celebrate and invite others to experience the joy of following Jesus together. We don’t take ourselves too seriously. We rejoice with those who rejoice, we weep with those who weep. We are serious about Jesus, relationships, and discipleship. Everything else we hold loosely.
In the great commission, Jesus commands his apostles to go and make disciples. Because He had poured his life out to them, they knew how to carry out the mission of discipleship. We continue that mission today by always looking for what’s next - the next small group, the next leader, the next church plant, etc. Our focus is on reproducing leaders and disciples of Jesus who can make disciples of Jesus.
What We Believe
At Restoration Church, we exist to love people, love God, and make disciples by proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are called to carry out the great commission and great commandment (Mathew 28:19-20) and our mission statement was built to capture these critical important mandates. We help people find and follow Jesus.
Our Pastor
Eric Swann: Eric has over 20 years of experience in ministry leadership. He has served in a variety of positions: from various volunteer roles, to Youth for Christ staff, to youth pastor, executive pastor and since 2021, the Lead Pastor and Church Planter for Restoration Church. A gifted speaker and communicator, he has a unique ability to relay God’s word and the themes of scripture in a relevant, relational way. He has a passion for people to know God and to know who God has made them to be. He is a challenger, an encourager, and a visionary – all for God’s kingdom purposes.
Eric is passionate about discipleship through relationships, which has led him to follow the call from God to establish a disciple-making movement in North Murfreesboro. As a lifelong resident of Middle Tennessee, he is incredibly thankful that God has chosen him to plant a church in his hometown!
Eric and his wife, Molly have two daughters: Addison and Annsley. Molly is a special education pre-K teacher at Walter Hill Elementary where she has the opportunity to care for and minister to families every day. Addison and Annsley are both incredibly sweet, caring, silly, girls whose parents think they’re the coolest kids in the world. As a family, they love backyard fire pits, going for walks, traveling, and cheering on the Tennessee Titans and St. Louis Cardinals. But more than anything they are passionate about being a part of a disciple-making movement that transforms the community that they live in.
