The Story of Vanguard

By Kelly Williams, Senior Pastor

Long before Vanguard Church came into existence, it was a dream birthed in the mind of God. He had in mind a place where people could share their spiritual journeys and experience the love of Jesus Christ. The dream of a "vanguard" type of church collided with my life in different ways over the years. However, it wasn't until 1996 that God began to inspire my wife and I with the who, when, where and how that would become Vanguard Church. The picture was not altogether clear at the time, but God gave us enough of a vision to know that we wanted to start a church that would live out the mission of loving people into a REAL relationship with Jesus Christ.

The actual journey of Vanguard Church of Colorado Springs began in October 1996. Twice a week, my wife and I hosted X-Groups in which about a dozen people would come together and share their spiritual journeys. It was a scary and exciting time as we started down the path of planting a church. We dreamed, we hoped, we came up with some crazy ideas and took risks, all with the goal of reaching people for Jesus Christ and establishing a new community of faith. For about five months, we laid the groundwork for our future church.

In March 1997, our sister church, Chapel Hills Baptist Church, allowed us the wonderful opportunity of using their fellowship hall so that we could start having services. On March 2nd, through radio advertising and with about a dozen committed people, we launched our first service with 75 people present. This was the beginning of a dream realized and a mission lived out. Every Sunday night, we hosted what we called an "R-Rated Service" which reached an audience that was very young, mostly single, and overwhelmingly lost. Once again, it was a very scary yet exciting time as we began to see people commit their lives to Christ.

We stayed in the facility at Chapel Hills for about six months until we grew out of that location. We wanted to start a Sunday morning service and needed to find another place for that to be possible. The opportunity came on September 7, 1997, when the doors opened for us to move into Challenger Middle School. We immediately transferred our Sunday night services to the new location, then the next month we started our Sunday morning services and children's ministry. For six months we ministered at Challenger, and we watched our community grow to about 150 people. The dream was expanding and new lives were being challenged to carry out the mission of Vanguard.

In 1998, God gave us the incredible opportunity to move our new community of faith into a semi-permanent facility at Flintridge and Academy. On March 1, 1998, we held our first services in the new facilities. It was so exciting to have the ability to host Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday night worship services, as well as have office facilities for the staff and beautiful rooms for the children's ministry. Despite the amazing new opportunities, however, our move to Flintridge was a huge financial step of faith for our young church. There were times when I wasn't sure the dream would survive simply because of financial challenges. However, God raised up many dedicated givers in our community of faith. Over and over again He confirmed that the dream of Vanguard is His, not ours. We are simply blessed to be a part of this amazing and miraculous journey.

While at Flintridge and Academy, our church legally constituted, raised up elders, hired our first staff members, developed the Team Player process, and launched our youth and women's ministries. Our church body began to grow, and, over time, Flintridge began to run out of space for us. I remember going home one night and wondering "What will we do next?" I turned on the 10:00 p.m. news and watched a report about old movie theaters in our city that were closing. One of those facilities just happened to be a mile down the road from us. Could this be our new home? We dreamed that it would be.

Once again, God was faithful to do the impossible. He carried on the dream of Vanguard Church by opening the doors for us at the former Academy Station Six Theater complex. On October 1, 2000, about a 100 people gave up their Sunday afternoon to help Vanguard move to this, our present location. A week later, on October 8, 2000, we held our first worship service in the new facilities.

Just as our move to the Flintridge location was a huge financial step of faith, our move to this former theater was a challenge. However, God has enabled our body to weather more financial storms because of the faithfulness of so many committed people. As a testimony to God and His faithful servants, today our church is debt free.

Since we moved into our Austin Bluffs location, our church has grown from 675 people to just over 1,100 people. In the past three years, we have launched our singles (ConXetion), missions (Beyond Ourselves), college (The Digs), and prayer ministries. God has been faithful to the dream He placed inside of us.

On May 19, 2006 Vanguard experienced a five and half year dream come to fruition. The finance company called and told you, “You own the building and the land.” We are now proud owners of a 27,000 square foot facility and about 3 acres of land. We bought it for 2.8 million and borrowed $600k to renovate three of the facilities and the main bathrooms of the building. There were so many times over the five and half years that we thought it was never going to happen. Matter a fact, there was one day when the landlord called and said, “Just forget it, you can remain a tenant.” But God had other plans!

After purchase we immediately started the renovations of three theaters and the main bathrooms. We are excited about the renovations of the three theaters for the children’s ministry after almost 10 years of a make-shift temporary wall facility we are going to be able to move our children into a permanent location. We are elated by this advancement. Finally, a place the children’s ministry can call home.

After seven and 1/2 years of moving from being a renter to an owner, we added on to our present facility a 20,000 square foot auditorium that seats 1,500 people. We held our first service in Theater Seven on January 27, 2008. Our first service in the new auditorium drew 1,501 people. God is truly enabling us to love more people into a REAL relationship with Jesus Christ. As soon as we moved out of Theater Six we began the renovation of it so that it can become a pre-function area and smaller auditorium meeting place. We hope to have this leg of the renovations completed in the May-June time-frame.