In February 2005, I had been living in a studio apartment on
Boylston Street next to the Fens for just over a month when I had a vision. God had already been speaking to me about church planting in Boston for almost a year, and I knew after spending 4 years going to school in the
Fenway where I wanted to start. I moved to the
Fenway mainly because couldn't imagine Jesus starting a church some where he didn't live. That month I had a vision. In the vision, I saw a light coming on in an apartment in a large brick apartment building along
Boylston Street. I looked in the window, and I saw 3 or 4 people playing a guitar and worshipping Jesus. The people there had the door open and after a moment they began leaving to go knock on other people's doors. I could tell people in the building knew that worship was going on in that apartment. Suddenly, I saw a light go on in another building. Then, I saw multiple lights going on in the same buildings. I knew those initial worshippers were seeing others begin to worship Jesus. As the
Fenway began to fill with these lights I heard God say to me,
"Build a structure that can contain the coming revival."That summer, I married Betsy - a radical Jesus follower and an amazing girl from Montana - who I had met while at Boston University. In the fall of 2005, we began a house church with the goal of
"Proclaiming the kingdom, meeting the needs of a generation, and forming communities of the Spirit and power..." We saw people delivered from demons, the sick healed, people meeting Jesus, and a growing community of 20 people emerge. Much of our initial focus was on the 20,000+ college students that lived in the
Fenway (some who would only be with us for a year or two).
In the spring of 2008, our team felt God leading us to begin meeting publicly on Sundays to have a visible proclamation point in
Fenway of who Jesus is. In October 2008, we launched a Sunday meeting in a brand new local club in the heart of the
Fenway - ironically called
CHURCH. Over the next 7 months, we grew from a team of 20 people to a gathering of 60+ even going to two Sunday meeting during the spring semester of 2009 and baptizing four people. We received a fair amount of media interest with an independent film team documenting our journey for over a year and 2 articles in the Weekly Dig (
Barstool Churches) and
BU's Daily Free Press (
A Church in a Bar). Our church became very involved in the community especially in partnering with
Operation Peace to serve the
Fenway neighborhood.
In a week, we will again launch a second meeting with meetings at 10:30am and 1pm on Sundays. I am more excited than ever to see more people experiencing Jesus at our meetings, worshipping in their apartments, serving the
Fenway community, and learning what church is truly all about.
Learn more about us at
www.fenwaychurch.org .
