This church has a lot going for it. The people are genuine and follow up with you. I grew up going…read moreto church and have never had such a great experience as here. The kids' program is also excellent. Our daughter loves it, and there are plenty of children her age to play with each age group, and they actually talk and learn about the Bible. In the main service the pastors teach from the Bible and encourage people to grow in their faith.

I have mixed feelings posting this review. On the one hand, the people in this church are among the…read morekindest and most generous you will ever meet. On the other hand, I believe the culture of the church is unhealthy, and let me explain why. I came to VS during a period where I was seeking friendship. I found That VS was a community who were willing to welcome me and get to know me. They assisted in very practical ways, and I found the small group to be a comfortable place. As I started to attend the rather lengthy set of membership trainings, certain positions that the church took began to raise some red flags. They were subtle, but perhaps because I have grown up in the church and attended many different styles of churches, I was able to discern something that seemed off. The pastors for the most part are quite open to offer explanations for the specific practices of their church, and I did not disagree with all of them. Nonetheless, a few things seemed problematic. Firstly, relatively shallow theology and guilt tripping during sermons and team meetings; secondly, an excessive emphasis on tithing but a lack of financial transparency; thirdly an expectation that 'unity' comes about from everyone agreeing on the specific values and beliefs positions of the church with little room for variation (ie uniformity rather than true unity). Lastly, an emphasis on empire building for the church network and its specific ideology. The church has a particular mission, to make disciples and to plant more churches. The making disciples presumably means to bring people in to the church who will ultimately be loyal to it and be relied upon to eventually help in church planting. The leaders of this church will likely spend their time with those they believe are future potential planters. Thus, the church exists to replicate itself, and does not tend to invest in activities that the members may view as valuable. It is a top-down structure where the members are naturally assumed to be followers until such time as the leaders believe they are ready. Obedience to leadership is a high priority for the church, and is stated so in their series class on 'community'. For the leadership, the pastor acts as the head elder and has full authority to appoint other elders, with no voting allowed from church members. This form of governance does not provide true accountability, for many of the reasons laid out in leavingthenetwork.org, who provide some concerning information regarding the culture of this church's network and its leadership. What was particularly difficult was finding that I could no longer stay in this church, and knowing that to leave would threaten the friendships I had. I hope that I can maintain friendships, but I am under no illusions that once former members are out, then they are rarely spoken about again. If that doesn't worry you, perhaps it should. As Christians and a part of the global body of Christ, I have never before had to fear that I would lose friends over going to a different church from them. It simply has never come up before and makes me wonder why this particular community needs to be so exclusive. By all means, try this church out, you'll be well loved if you can accept everything they want you to and don't ask too many questions. If not, I would give this one a pass, at least until such time (I hope) that the network repents of certain practices and recalibrate into something that more truly looks like its mandate to 'love God and love People'.