Valley Family Church

The VFC Story

Our Story - Past & Present

It was 1991, mullets and permed hair were big and Pastors Jeff and Beth Jones had a God-given vision to make an eternal difference in Southwest Michigan!

On September 22, 1991 with three other adults and four kids, VFC was launched! Over 120 people attended the first service at the Richland Lodge and when the dust settled, about 50 people stuck and became the initial core group of VFC pioneers and today, nearly 4000 people attend each weekend.

From the beginning, we have seen Valley Family Church as a local church with a regional influence. Our vision and purpose have been focused on reaching Southwest Michigan. Our message has stayed consistent and can be summarized as one of abundant life through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and through faith in God's Word!

Jeff and Beth have always operated as a husband-wife ministry team, sharing the leadership and teaching responsibilities. They have been surrounded by a wonderful staff and team of volunteers and God has blessed VFC with growth, increase and greater influence.

Our journey began in Richland...

The Richland Lodge Era - 1991-1994: Pastors Jeff and Beth pioneered and named Kalamazoo Valley Family Church on September 22, 1991 in Richland. For the first four years of the church's life, we met in a rented facility known as the Richland Lodge. Each week, we set up tables, chairs and kids church and God blessed these humble and feeble attempts! During that time VFC grew to about 250 people.

The Kilgore Building Era - 1994-1999: We bought and remodeled our first facility, a light industrial/office building. We continued to teach the Word, Get a Grip on the Basics classes, develop leaders, start a small Bible school, and the church grew to about 500 people. 

The 995 Romence Road Era - 1999-2009: We built our first building - a 32,000 square foot facility on 14 acres on Romence Road, across from the Crossroads Mall in Portage. The location and high visibility caused our church to grow rapidly and over a ten year period we expanded our services times to four different weekend services and grew from 500 to about 3000. When we outgrew that building, we built our current facility and converted the 995 Romence Road facility into the Valley Family Community Center as an outreach extension of VFC which houses the Joy City Community Preschool, the EPIC Commission, the EPIC School of Ministry and other outreach ministries.

The Cathedral/Vincent Avenue Era: 2009 - Present: We built our second building - an 85,000 square foot, 1500 seat facility on 30 acres adjacent to the historic Cathedral on I-94 near the US-131 Highway interchange. Each week nearly 4000 people attend one of the multiple services at VFC.

VFC is an independent, non-denominational, charismatic Christian church! We are not affiliated with any one denomination and in fact, our church is full of people who were raised in any number of denominations: Methodist, Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Assembly of God, Christian Reformed, Nazarene, Reformed, Wesleyan, Church of God, Episcopal and numerous others. The thing we all have in common is that we exalt Jesus Christ as Lord and we believe the Bible is the Word of God and we have no doubt that Jesus is building His Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.