History

Restore Community Church began life as Vineyard Church (Loughton) and was started in 1985 by a small group of local Christians hungry to see God move in a new way in the local community.

Wes and Mary Sutton joined the church in 1988 and led it from 1989 until 2007, during which time there was steady growth both in terms of numbers and in community-based work. Ian King joined Vineyard in 2001, and worked alongside Wes and Mary until they moved on at the beginning of 2007, at which point he took over leading the church.

Although the church was called Vineyard and had much in common with the Vineyard church movement, it was never part of this network. In order to bring clarity to this issue, and also in response to a number of prophetic words received about God wanting to give us a new name and change our DNA, the church was renamed Restore Community Church in June 2010.

Restore Community Church is a diverse congregation of over 300 people, mainly drawn from Loughton, Debden and the surrounding areas. We believe in working in partnership with others in the building of the Kingdom of God. To this end, the church is committed to working with other local churches through Churches Together in Loughton, and with other churches nationally through the Evangelical Alliance. Restore Community Church is also a member of the New Wine Network, the Willow Creek Association, and a link-church of Ichthus Christian Fellowship.

What happened to Vineyard?

As of June 2010, Vineyard Church (Loughton) became Restore Community Church. We renamed for two reasons:

As a church, we received a number of prophetic words from God about Him giving us a new name and clarifying our vision. In the Bible, a number of people were re-named by God as a part of them finding their true identity and calling (e.g. Abraham, Jacob, Peter). As we prayed and asked God to speak to us, the name He gave us was “restore” and the vision to impact communities, hence 'Restore Community Church'

Although the church had been called Vineyard and had much in common with the Vineyard church movement, it was never part of this network. Increasingly this became confusing for us, so we felt that re-naming would remove the confusion.

We are very grateful for everyone who has been a part of our history as Vineyard Church. Without their prayers, love, service and commitment we would not be where we are today. We are very grateful to God for our history, knowing that many laboured to lay a good foundation, and we now look forward to God building upon this foundation into our next phase as a church.