Jim & Korenne have been married eight years and while he comes from Los Angeles, CA USA, Korenne comes from Little Chalfont, Bucks where she grew up at St. Andrews, Chorleywood under the leadership of David Pytches & Barry Kissell.  They were living in Hertfordshire and were Associate Pastors with St Albans Vineyard when they started listening to Erwin McManus who messed them up for good.  This led to a time of asking BIG questions about life and purpose and regret and in early 2007 they realized God was asking them to step out of the known and move to Kent to plant a Vineyard.  So, in March 2007 they put their house on the market and began the process with Vineyard UK.  During this time they commuted down to Southeast Kent fortnightly to meet up with people, house search and pray…. a lot.

After Vineyard accepted them as planters they loaded up the truck and moved to Canterbury on August 22nd with no team except for their three little boys of 6, 4 & 2 years of age who were pretty excited by the way about being interns in THEIR new church.  Since then it has been a whirlwind of unpacking boxes, painting walls, throwing parties, meeting people and trying to listen and follow God around.

In the midst of the DIY haze and our “deer in the headlights” stare we came to see a couple things:  first, we were glad to be in southeast Kent!  The beauty, the people, the history, the glut of coffeehouses! as well as the sea being so close have made us feel so “at home.”  And secondly, we felt God’s fingerprint -His blessing and involvement - in this every step of the way.  He IS up to something really cool in Southeast Kent and we are honoured to be able to be a part of it.

Well, the story continues as we began to form as a little “Launch Team” in October 2007 leading to a Christmas Worship Gathering in Bar 121 in town.  It was a great night and led to our 1x a mos “Preview Services” in the New Year (still at Bar 121) while still meeting as a growing Launch Team on Thursday evenings at our home.  By God’s favour & grace people continued to hear about the vision at the heart of CV and be attracted to jump in!  So, slowly our numbers began to balloon and a real “family” form until we knew we needed to make the jump to a “public launch.”

This happened September of 2008 and at Westgate Hall in the heart of Canterbury we launched a weekly Sunday evening gathering with 70ish people worshipping God and hearing the first of five Core Value talks that lined out the Vision for God’s work thru Vineyard in SE Kent. (you can find the recording of those talks on the podcast page of this website or on iTunes’ Canterbury Vineyard podcast)

Since then we have seen:

• The Launch of a second, evening service called "BURN" in April of 2009
• Geoff Hillier step on board as our Associate Pastor 
• The first "Religion Sucks" event for our friends who don't do church in October 2009
• Kick off of our "participation course" (not membership course!) called Welcome to the Family 
• And in January 2010 we moved into our 24/7 Warehouse facility at Unit 8, Cotton Road in the Wincheap Industrial estate.

We are so excited & humbled as the future takes shape before our very eyes and we can’t wait to add to this page as the story develops into the future.  We are particularly excited to see God's compassionate heart expressed thru the compassion and vision of His people who start and lead out in new initiatives and strategies to see Jesus' love and Kingdom reach the "least of these."  How cool it is to be a part of something more than merely good human ingenuity… we wanted to see God build something just so that we could be around Him as he does!  What a privilege. 

If you’re curious please feel free to come along & join the fun.  But remember - we have one rule:  Be Yourself!

Hope to see ya soon,

Jim & Korenne