A cistern is a vessel designed to be filled as needed, to then be emptied out as needed. We believe that every follower of Jesus is a cistern of God’s love: filled up with the extravagant, steadfast love of our Creator-Father, to then share His love through the Gospel of Jesus to those around us.

Cistern Church formed out of a desire to bring a Gospel-centered community to the southwest corner of inner loop Houston. After a small team of Christ-followers from those neighborhoods, led by Sammy Ramos, spent more than a year praying & planning, Cistern Church began gathering for weekly Sunday worship in January 2019 at Parker Elementary. Once the COVID-19 pandemic began just over a year later, we continued to gather & fellowship virtually and outdoors. We returned to gathering & fellowshipping indoors in spring of 2022, and we’re excited to see what God has in store for the next chapter of our church!

Unashamedly Biblical – The Bible is the basis for everything we do as a church. Where the Bible speaks to life and practice for the church, we follow. Where the Bible is silent, we do our best to operate by other biblical principles. As a general matter, our preaching and teaching is exegetical, meaning we expound the truths present in the Bible rather than seeking to make good points and then finding verses that support our point of view. 

Gospel Centrality – The gospel is the good news that God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, who lived a perfect life, died on a cross for the sins of mankind and rose from the dead. This gospel is more than just a good story – it is the story that defines other stories, including our stories. The gospel is the lens through which we view and interpret the world around us. 

Journey Together – The Christian life is meant to be lived in community. We are meant to live out our faith and relationship with God in the context of relationships with each other. We need to know and be known by others on this journey of faith to fulfill what Jesus commands of his church. Ephesians 4 uses the metaphor of a body to describe the church. When we are living in authentic community, God will build up the church.

Simplicity for the Sake of Generosity – It can take a lot of time, energy, and resources to do “church” in the form expected by many in the western world. We believe church should be kept relatively simple, to allow us to focus on what matters and be generous with our resources elsewhere. As a church in the United States, we have been richly blessed and we want to focus less of that blessing on ourselves and more on others. This approach allows us to give over 10% of our tithes and offerings to mission partners and our community on an ongoing basis.