“Why Vernon Hills?” is often a question I get when I tell people about the location of our fourth campus. People point out that Lake Forest is only 15 minutes away, so…“why won’t they just come here?”
Recently, my wife and I were in Vernon Hills looking to rent a house. The house we were looking at was owned by a man who has lived in Vernon Hills all his life and is a neighbor to a member of Christ Church. This man doesn’t attend church, but has been invited by his neighbor to Christ Church often. His answer was always the same, “Why would I leave my community and drive all the way to Lake Forest?” As we began to talk, he naturally asked what I did for work, which led to a conversation about starting a church in Vernon Hills. When he heard that there was a church coming to his community, he responded: “I’d be interested in learning more about that.”
There are people hungry for the Good News, but we can’t expect them to come to us. Rather, we need to go to them. We are called to reach people and bring this Good News. I’m excited to be at a church willing to REACH into new communities. Why Vernon Hills? Because there are people that won’t come to us; but we can go to them.