About Us
Our Story
The following is a brief summary of the history of The Vine Church.
In the summer of 2008 the Lord began stirring the hearts of Scott and Carrie Sterner that church planting may the direction in which He was leading them for their future. After eleven years as Worship and Arts Pastor and, most recently, as Pastor of Programming and Operations at Parkview Church in Iowa City, the Lord began clarifying this direction toward planting in the Midwest through the Acts 29 Network.
In early 2009 Scott and Carrie connected with good friends Zach and Kim Nielsen, asking if Zach would consider planting with Scott as co-lead pastor. Zach was previously on staff with Scott at Parkview Church and was then the Pastor of Music and Worship at Desert Spring Church in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Zach and Kim agreed to begin exploring this vision for planting with Scott and Carrie. The Lord confirmed this calling in May of 2009, and soon after, plans began developing for relocation to Madison, Wisconsin in the summer of 2010.
Not long after the planting vision became public Nate Hobert, the University Pastor at Parkview Church, was welcomed with his wife Amanda to also join the planting team for what now had become The Vine Church. This name is based on the Bible verse from John 15:5 where Jesus said, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” Nate and Amanda had long felt called to church plant and joined the team with the idea that they will be the first to plant a second church from The Vine within the first 2-3 years of its launch.
The pastoral team relocated to Madison the summer of 2010. The pastors immediately began part time jobs in various locations throughout Madison, knowing that they wanted to be bi-vocational by both working for the church and also within the community. Part of this vision flowed from the desire to both practice and model for the church what it means to live missionally among people outside the church and outside the Christian faith.
The vision of the leadership was to plant this church and to let it grow organically through relationships. This is primarily because The Vine leaders were (and are) committed to a church environment where people are making their spheres of influence (job, hobbies, neighborhoods, etc...) the primary location for ministry and mission. Though planting churches with a focus on programming and marketing has it’s place, the desire from day one was to not become another transfer church for Christians, but to become a church intent upon reaching people who were previously unengaged by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
In July of 2010 the core team began a Sunday gathering at Warner Park and, soon after, relocated to Lapham Elementary (one mile east of the Capital) in September. Three city groups (our smaller home based communities, where mission is lived out in the context of relationships) were launched in September and our first membership class was offered in April and May.
For more information on our beliefs and strategy, please click on the categories in the right column.
