Evanston Vineyard Church Planting Blog

Reason #2 why Evanston Vineyard plants new churches: Because we want to see more people be introduced to the life-changing power of God’s mercy and truth, and new churches do that more efficiently.

It’s not that a church our age doesn’t introduce new people to Jesus; we do so in many different ways, all the time. But a new church plant’s whole focus is on building something new out of a community of people who never really knew Jesus before the planters and their team showed up. Sure, they’ll get some folks who are already committed Christians who couldn’t find a church home or are transferred into town. But the foundation of the church, the thing that makes it exciting, is establishing a community of brand-new wholehearted followers of Jesus.

Here’s a very recent story from one of our church planters, Jim Pool, up in Royal Oak, Michigan, that beautifully illustrates this:

When we first started looking for a new building, we put a call into a realtor on one of the signs of the buildings that we were interested. (Plus, he had a pretty cool sounding name!) When we met him, he swore like a sailor - though he insists he doesn’t really remember this! That building didn’t work out, but we really seemed to click, and so we told him we wanted him to rep us. A week or two later he invited us over to his house to talk over things and to look over some more possibilities - as soon as we walked in he offered us a beer; and we ended up talking way more about the Bible and science and all kinds of other questions than about properties. This evolved into regular Friday morning breakfasts at my favorite hang-out to talk about “realty”, when in fact 95% of what we talked about what God, Jesus, the Bible, etc. He would come up with whatever questions were on his mind and then we would talk; at our first meeting he told me his wife had just made him give up smoking pot! After a month or so of this I invited him to church - he and his new wife came and they loved it. They’ve come regularly since then, sitting right behind me and tapping along on the chair to the drum. He helped us find space in a building to rent and he was honored by the church - who gave him a big ovation. He’s been coming much closer to God - wondering why he doesn’t seem to feel anything in worship like most everyone else is, etc. - and coming to believe that the gospel makes sense, etc. Well, two Fridays ago at our breakfast, I asked him if he was ready to commit to Jesus, but he said he just wasn’t quite there, but was close. Then, this past Sunday, after articulating the gospel and asking if anyone wanted to give their life to Jesus, he stood up. I’ve been doing this for months with no response, and praying hard for someone to commit their life to Jesus, and when he stood up, I started to cry. Then two other women stood up to recommit their lives to Jesus, too. It was powerful! Praise God! As Matt Redman quotes C.H. Spurgeon, “Never lose faith in the power of the gospel.”