Our Pastors
Clayton and Romey Ritter are our senior pastors. They have three beautiful kids, Liam, Jai, and Bella. Clayton and Romey met in 1997 in Australia, where Clayton was playing professional basketball and Romey was serving in a local church. They fell in love and married in 1999. In 2000 Clayton left his basketball career and Romey left her home country to follow the call of God to move to Clayton’s hometown of Virginia Beach to begin a new chapter of ministry. They had been serving on the pastoral staff of a local church in Virginia Beach for sixteen years when God began to speak and call them to a new work. God called them to plant Seashore Church.
In 2017 they began prayer meetings in their home with their family and a few friends. While gathering to pray for God’s plans, praying for the city and our nation, worshipping and eating together, the Holy Spirit blessed and grew these meetings. Eventually outgrowing homes, Seashore Church began Sunday meetings in December 2017 and has been steadily growing ever since.
Clayton and Romey’s heart is to see God’s kingdom come and His will done, on earth as it is in Heaven, and to raise a generation of revivalist-reformers who can hear God’s voice and obey Him wholeheartedly.
Our heart for our
Seashore Family
The Church is more than a gathering place for believers. It is the body of Christ, His family. We all have an important place in the family. It has been said that the greatest two moments in life are the day we are born, and the day we discover why. Knowing our God-given identity and purpose is essential for every believer. This only happens when we live in an intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit and live obedient to and empowered by Him.
Discovering our God-given identity begins by entering into an intimate relationship with the Father. He has created every one of us with purpose. He is the One who will instruct our hearts and define His purpose in our lives. Man, at best, can only help in this process. This must be done by the hand of the Father if we are to be His children.
Empowerment by the Holy Spirit is essential for every believer and for establishing God’s Kingdom on the earth. Every believer is to continue the ministry of Jesus by preaching the gospel, healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out demons, disciplining others, and destroying the works of the devil. At Seashore, we will help people walk in freedom and wholeness, and live fully and continually filled with the Holy Spirit, so all can become faithful ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ under His anointing. This is a heavenly mandate for every believer.
Character development is vital. Our character is our integrity before God. He is looking for purity in us, holiness, wholeness, obedience, righteousness, and honesty in the depths of our hearts. Without purity of character, the gifts He gives us become perverted. God is looking for people who will carry His anointing with purity so He can express His gifts through our lives to build up all people.
Spiritual gifts need development. With the exception of Jesus, no human operated perfectly in every spiritual gift every time. It takes practice. A mother and father do not give up on a child learning to walk because the child falls over. They encourage the child to get up again and again because they know the child will eventually be running around, strong and confident. Our Heavenly Father does not give up on us as we are learning His supernatural ways and exercising His gifts. Seashore Church is a safe and nurturing environment for everyone to learn to run, strong and confident.
God’s plan for the establishment of His Kingdom and the destruction of the devil’s work is not restricted to just a few leaders in the church. God wants every son and daughter to rise in His strength and fulfill all His purposes. It will take an army of believers who boldly and obediently walk in His ways, filled with the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the Great Commission. We want to raise people up and send them into their workplaces, their cities, and the nations. We want to plant churches and other ministries. We want to see people boldly preaching and miraculously demonstrating the Kingdom of God in the full power of the Holy Spirit.
