Church Plant Spotlight: Village Church Winnipeg
As we embrace being BOLDLY FORWARD, NEVER ALONE as Fellowship Pacific, one of the key ways we live this out is through church planting and we are excited to share more stories from our church plants this year! This month we want to introduce you to Village Church Winnipeg in Winnipeg, MB!
“We stand in this place because we believe that God has called us into this neighbourhood.”
For Kevin Schular and his wife, Jill, the calling to serve and care for a neighbourhood/town/city through church multiplication had been on their hearts for a long time, and after completing the church planting assessment course through C2C Network in 2019, they knew that their hearts were anticipating a full-time future in this ministry and that they were excited to see it develop where they are in Manitoba.
So in July 2020, right in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, Kevin and Jill began working with Village Church to plant a church site in Winnipeg and right away had to face the challenge of how to develop a launch team while navigating ever changing provincial health guidelines that often were different from those that Village Church sites in other provinces had to face. However, thanks to Village Church Online, they were able to begin to gather in very small groups to watch the Sunday services and eventually had Community Groups meeting throughout the 2021-2022 season. As the anticipation of being able to meet together as one whole church was building, ministry was still happening in and amongst the group(s) where God’s work and church were being strengthened and bathed in prayer over those two and a half years.
In October 2022, Village Church Winnipeg was able to begin consistently gathering weekly as a church, but even now those Community Groups continue to be an amazing resource/tool/method of how God is growing their community spiritually and physically. They receive more feedback about how their church is genuine and authentic, where many have forgotten about their desire for a “live” speaker and have decided to commit to weekly meeting(s) with a genuine community. Kevin loves to remind their community that they are not creating something new; this is just another way God increases His Kingdom here on Earth as His will determines who comes and goes.
Village Church Winnipeg is located in St. Vital, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Winnipeg, and their desire is to be a church for that neighbourhood and to reach those communities.
Would you join us in praying along with them?
Pray for the creation of St. Vital community group(s)—for “Homes of Peace” where gospel community can meet and care for each other.
Pray for local school connection(s) where the church can see an increase in participation to care and serve local families.
Pray for skeptics to find Gospel truth and promises and that they would desire to know Jesus more.
And pray that followers of Jesus, in St. Vital and south side Winnipeg, pursue genuine church community in which they can grow and serve each other.