New Life Story | |
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New Life Bible Church got its start in Winnebago in
1997. Pastor Gary Turner had felt God leading him to
start a new church in Winnebago for some time. He
was then pastor of Family Bible Fellowship in
Rockford. Pastor Gary began making door to door
calls in the Winnebago area to invite people to this
new church in July, 1997. By the middle of October,
he had called at 2300 different homes in the area.
Our first public service was the last Sunday in
October, 1997. We had 83 people in attendance.
New Life Bible Church met at the Winnebago Town Hall
for the first four years of its existence. As with
most new church starts, the attendance began to drop
right from the beginning. We stuck it out and by
May, 1998, things turned around. Our numbers began
to increase! In July, 1999, we hired Pastor Tim
Spickler as our youth pastor. In August, 2000, we
hired Pastor Dan Kennedy as our Worship Pastor. The
church continued to grow, and in 2001 we moved to
our current location at US 20 and Hoisington Road.
We thought we had built the building big enough to
last three to five years before having to make any
changes. In March, 2002, we had to go to two
services, again to make room for all the children
that were coming to church. In October, 2004, we
dedicated a classroom addition to our building and
in April, 2007, we dedicated an addition to our
sanctuary.
Our church has continued to grow and in January,
2006, we hired Pastor Don Knoup as our Youth Pastor.
Pastor Tim moved to Administrative Pastor and in
June, 2006, we hired Shelly Spickler as our Women
and Children’s Ministry Director. We continue to be
blessed with families full of children who attend
New Life Bible Church. We have over 100 Junior High
and Senior High Kids coming to Next Level, our youth
group, on Wednesday nights. We also have about 50
kids, fifth grade and down, who are attending our
Kidzone ministry. Along with everything else that
happens at New Life, we have about 50 Senior
Citizens show up for lunch every other month in our
Senior ministry.
Our vision for the future is to continue to grow our
church and reach families with the gospel message.
Our vision also includes a children’s group home and
a senior citizen housing complex on the 21 acres of
land we set on. In the next few months to come, our
desire is to develop more campus churches across the
Northern Illinois region. We invite you to come join
us in this huge effort of taking the gospel message
out to those who don’t know Jesus as their Lord and
Savior. We are a non-denominational church that is
drawing people from a 30 mile radius around us.
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