What is The Five Sixteen Co?

What began as a pre-teen’s search for a “life verse” has turned into so much more. Ashleigh’s birthday is May 16th, so she wanted to find a verse that matched her birthday to focus her life around. After much searching, she landed on Matthew 5:16 - in the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

And the rest is history - just kidding! The rest is a messy story that’s still being written. After committing to live out Matthew 5:16, Ashleigh struggled to understand what it looked like for her to let her light shine. Through her journey to become a teacher, to her decision to leave the public school system to pursue long-term work overseas, to being brought back stateside to pursue seminary and minister to students along the way, Ashleigh has learned that it’s not the “big” things you do that make your light shine the brightest - it’s being faithful in and obedient to the little things God calls you to each day.

In whatever God puts before you, and wherever God places you, you have an opportunity - and an obligation - to let your light shine in a way that brings glory to God and points others to Him. The Five Sixteen Co exists to help you do this. Our mission here is pretty simple: we want to equip you with truth and resources to let your light shine.

We aim to accomplish this through four simple avenues:

1. Provide Biblically-sound and accessible teaching. Nothing is worse than clicking on an article and only understanding 12% of it. That’s intimidating! Our goal is to provide content that is accessible/understandable and replicable.
2. Follow Jesus’ methods of teaching. We can learn a lot about how to teach from Jesus, who was (is) the best teacher to ever walk the earth. Jesus used a variety of teaching methods: He appealed to visual and tactile learners through visual illustrations and experiential learning. He used repetition and memorable sayings. He told stories. He made use of teachable moments. He used natural conversations. He answered questions. He asked questions. He taught by example - and we aim to follow the example He set regarding how to teach.
3. Build and maintain an authentic community. We weren’t meant to do life alone. We need others! We believe the best form of community is found in the context of a gospel-centered, Bible-believing local church. But we also hope you will join our community as we strive to glorify God together.
4. Promote purposeful products. Our commitment to you is that any item we sell (or endorse) can serve to help you let your light shine.

Find out more about What We Believe.