History of Vision Community Church

What a blessing to look back and see what the Lord has done. When you are walking through it all it seems like a daily quest to find God’s will and plan. In fact at times it feels as if you are stumbling aimlessly. As I look back now, I can see that He was clearly in control the whole time. In Hebrews 11:8 we see that Abraham obeyed God and headed out in the direction he was told to go even though he had no idea where he was going. That is how it has seemed to me most of the time. Now, in hindsight, I can see a bit of the big picture, though I know there is much more to come.

In 1984 I was just leaving Juneau, Alaska after years of struggling against the Lord’s calling. That is quite a story in itself, but we will stick with the history of Lifeline Ministries and Vision Community Church. The ministry really began in a formal sense when my wife Michele and I met in college. I had a strong calling for evangelism on my life and we began to travel and preach the Gospel through word and music. We also spent quite a bit of time ministering on the streets. These were wonderful times spiritually and in terms of ministry, and challenging times financially. Early on the Lord impressed upon us that we should not charge money for any of the tapes or services. To this day when Lifeline goes somewhere to minister we do not ask for money. Even the CD’s are given away on a donation basis, and the CD of the Month ministry is sent to subscribers free of charge. Many faithful financial supporters have risen up and taken part in the ministry and God is always faithful. We just want to make sure nobody every feels pressured to give and that nobody will miss out on what God has given us due to finances. In our churches we don’t even pass an offering plate. There are simply boxes on the wall where people can place tithes and offerings. In the early days this presented some financial challenges, and we are still far from being a wealthy ministry in a financial sense. It’s hard to imagine more of a blessing than the knowledge of the thousands who have come to know Christ and the many we have had the privilege of training who are in active ministry now. When I think of the addicts who have been delivered, the children who have come to Christ, and the many who testify to the way the Lord has used the Lifeline ministry in their lives, I consider that wealth beyond measure.

In 1988 we moved back to my home town in Alaska and for several years we spent half of each year there. I would work in the family business and raise money for the six months we would be on the road sharing the Gospel. We also began taking from two to four people along on tour each year to go through an intensive discipleship program. That was the beginning of the deep conviction we have about training leaders that led to Vision Bible College. We also began writing the “Walking With Jesus” discipleship series for the purpose of those six month discipleship endeavors. We did not know at the time that it would become a curriculum used by thousands of individuals and churches for discipleship and ministry training. Throughout this writing of Lifeline history, I hope you will catch the beauty of the message in that God is always doing more than we can see. I could only see what was right in front of me, but the Lord had an outline for what was happening that would bring about a far larger impact on the Kingdom of God. I looked at the ministry as just a few simple people playing music and preaching Jesus, but there was much more to come.

Throughout the years we have been affiliated with the Church of God who’s home base is in Anderson, Indiana. We don’t use the name “Church of God” a lot because there are so many flaky organizations out there using that title. We have found within the Church of God (Anderson) movement the freedom to live out the Word of God. There is no written “manual” of church doctrine apart from the Bible and the Local churches are autonomous with a willingness to partner together for God’s work. This leads to quite a bit of variety between different churches in different areas, and in the ministry here it definitely shows the “real people, changed lives” approach with a firm dedication to God’s Word and a passion for practical Christian life and ministry.

By 1990 it was clear to all of us that we had far more people who wanted to go through the Lifeline discipleship program than we could possibly take on the road every year. That year on tour the Lord impressed upon me to put aside half of all the offerings in an account to buy property the following year. This seemed impossible since we usually had only enough to survive. Sure enough we fell behind. We paid our bills on the road with a credit card that we would pay off each month faithfully. Suddenly we were $2,700.00 in the hole and yet had that amount in the savings account for the upcoming property purchase. This seemed silly to me and to everyone else. About that time we suddenly had two weeks off in the middle of tour. That was always a financial challenge. As I was praying and asking the Lord what was going on, I received a letter from a man I hardly knew. He said the Lord had spoken to him and asked him to send us $5,500.00. Once we put half of it away in the account, the remaining half was exactly what we needed to pay the bills! That is one simple story in a history that includes many miracles, but I include it to show the Lord’s faithfulness.

In 1991 we moved to Caldwell, Idaho and began the Lifeline Discipleship Center. For two years prior we had been adding staff and Brian and Cathi Corcoran had come to be very helpful as leaders. Together with them and John and Amy Bibb, another couple who have been very valuable in leadership, we purchased four houses on one block and began the center. Four the next four years we had quite an interesting journey. One of the men who came for discipleship was a young Canadian by the Name of Gregg Peterson. Gregg was to become one of the most influential leaders in Lifeline’s history and is still an Elder with Lifeline today. We were able to house over 30 people at the Discipleship Center and it also opened the opportunity to meet some other needs, such as an addiction recovery program and a housing center for people in need. We were not prepared for the overwhelming demand for these things in the area. Almost instantly the intensive discipleship program for training ministers was eclipsed by the needs of some deeply hurting people. In hindsight we made some mistakes that have built tremendous conviction within us today. Please don’t misunderstand, I tend to analyze things constantly and look for ways to improve so it seems to some that I am focusing on the negative. There is no question that the Lifeline Discipleship Center was a powerful and effective ministry. Many were trained, delivered, and saved in those years. The error was that we were trying to meet so many needs and taking on so many burdens that in the end we found ourselves tapped out financially and emotionally. We had reasoned that the local churches would see the need and lend support. It was not so. The needs were so great that the Lifeline evangelistic team was not traveling as much which placed further burdens on the financial picture. In 1995, after intense prayer and fasting, we determined that we needed to sell the properties and regroup.

Around this same time the Lifeline team went to Walla Walla, Washington to hold services. On the way home we were in a terrible van accident that left me severely injured and all of us shaken up in many ways. Together with the challenges presented by the Discipleship Center debts, this was a rather dark time in the history of a ministry that was accustomed to leaping tall buildings in a single bound. I could barely walk for a long time and though the Lord healed many things instantly, for whatever reason we had to walk through others the hard way. Just the other day I was discussing this with someone and it hit me that we would never have been able to do what we are doing now without all of that happening. We had so much momentum that it would have been hard to slow us down and get us to hear the Lord on what was to come.

We went back on the road full-time. In fact on one tour we scheduled 186 crusade and revival services in 180 days! It was quite an effort and we made it only by the strength of the Lord. I was pretty worn out and when we arrived back in Idaho we were really questioning the Lord on what the next step would be. In the course of the ministry the Lord has only significantly brought a new direction a few times. One was when we started out, another was when He told us to move to Idaho and start the Discipleship Center, and another was about to come. We could sense the change coming but did not know what it would be. We had purchased property in Marsing, Idaho by the Lord’s leading and had built an RV park. We really didn’t know completely why. We reasoned that it was because we all lived in travel trainers due the mobile nature of the ministry. The written discipleship materials and the music were gaining a lot of popularity and recognition, as was the evangelistic ministry itself. We were receiving a number of inquiries to go international and were contemplating crusades in Africa and Europe. It seemed like the logical next step. As always however, the Lord’s ways are higher than our ways.

One night my wife and I had been out running around and were driving home. I sensed the presence of the Lord in a way so powerful that it overwhelmed me. I was driving at the time and suddenly I could not even speak. I pulled over and motioned for my wife to drive. She didn’t even ask what was going on. The presence of the Lord was incredible. When we arrived home she got out and went in the house and I just sat in the car and prayed. I then got out and began waling around the Lifeline property, then little more than a large field with some RV sites and our manufactured homes. At that moment the Lord showed me only one thing, that I was now to be a “simple man of God”. I thought I was a simple man of God. Anyway, it meant a few things for sure. I realized that we were not to go forward with the international crusades and that we were to pursue our commitment to local church ministry. We had already moved ahead with the college, aligning with Vision International University in Ramona, California. This allowed us to operate as an accredited program and gave us access to a larger curriculum. Through the RV park and local housing we were able to house those who came and many of our students were on the distance learning program. Through all of this the leadership training part of the ministry was really growing and I reasoned that it may be the reason the Lord was telling us to focus in more at home. I would later find out it was only one part of the puzzle.

In the late 1990’s we were operating the college, traveling and doing the evangelistic work, producing thousands upon thousands of written and audio resources, we were the state youth directors for all of the Churches of God in Montana, and serving on staff with the Oregon Trail Church of God in Caldwell, Idaho. I should mention that in all the years that Lifeline has existed we have always been committed to operating out of a local church. We have never seen ourselves as a para-church organization. It is our firm belief that the local church is God’s ordained plan as His headquarters for ministry on this earth. That is clearly evidenced in scripture. That said, there have been times when my personal opinion of the organized church has not been too great. After the Discipleship Center, when I felt the local churches could not see the need and support a vital ministry, I was somewhat let down in my opinion of the church. Then in that same time period, a group of people in Canada, most of whom had never met me or been to one of our services, took it upon themselves to brand me a heretic. This was all based on something I had written that they clearly misunderstood. Had they simply contacted me and asked it would have been a simple misunderstanding. They then took our schedule and went before us to various churches telling them not to have us in and saying all manner of false things about us. I was devastated. We had spent years working with the Church of God in Canada and had led many to Christ. We had labored without charge with the sole purpose of winning the lost and edifying the church and I could not believe how quickly people believed the false attacks against us. There was always more demand for us to come than we could meet so it never threatened our existence, but regrettably, I allowed it to create bitterness in me. I could not believe that in the Body of Christ people would not even call or write to ask me about these things before slandering us. On top of the struggle with the financial situation stemming from the Discipleship Center and my extreme physical struggles in recovering from the van accident and simply being able to walk, I hit a pretty low point personally. I never doubted God in any way but I certainly came to doubt the church.

Then it happened, the Lord told us to plant a church. At the lowest point in my opinion of the church in general He told us to plant a church in Marsing. Ernest and Shannon Salmond had joined us several years earlier and were working closely with us in the leadership of the ministry. I don’t think they were too excited about planting a church either. Then we presented the idea to the state Church of God organization. They were very much in support of us in general but felt that it was unwise to plant a church in Marsing, a small town where churches in general seemed to struggle. So there would be no support from them early on. We did have the support and blessing of the Oregon Trail Church of God, which had been our home church for a few years. Pastor Don Bertelsen, who is now an Elder with Lifeline, had been such a blessing as we had walked through this dark time. Beyond that however, most people thought we were crazy. So we began the church in Marsing without a lot of personal zeal. I am ashamed to admit that but it is the truth. However, looking back I now believe that our circumstances were vital in determining the kind of local church that the Lord would use us to plant. We were completely burned out on what we call “stupid stuff.” That refers to all the silly, non-scriptural and destructive things that many churches do in the name of the Lord. We determined that we would rather do it right with eight people than wrong with eight hundred. That is where our commitment to being “real people with changed lives” comes from. We were committed to avoiding dry religion and reaching out with the truth of freedom in Christ Jesus. We held that you could plant a church with a real commitment to the Word of God in a time when there is a lot of pressure to water down the truth to reach people. It is our deep commitment that adding to scripture is just as wrong as taking away from it. Too often the church adds many rules and bondages that simply aren’t in the Word of God.

It turned out that there were a lot of people who were looking for a church like that. The Marsing Church grew and all of a sudden all of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to come together. The training end of the ministry, the evangelism, all of the lessons learned from thousands of services in churches in many places. It all came into play. More than even the numerical growth, the Marsing church has been unique in the ministry that goes forth. In a church of a hundred people we have eight preachers, three worship teams, and many youth and children’s workers. In a time when many congregations are searching for a pastor and offering good salaries we had a backup of great leaders who wanted to come and work for free! I often hear our people say, “there is more ministry happening in this church than in most churches ten times this size.” It’s true and this caught the eye of many leaders within the movement. Suddenly we realized we had more than a successful church plant, we had a model of the biblical reproducing church that others could follow. Several of us began to teach on it in our travels. The interest continues to grow and we are thrilled to be used by the Lord to impact the Kingdom at such a great level.

During all of this we continued to move forward with the college, gaining our own international accreditation and eventually becoming independent from Vision International University. We have many students in the distance learning program and the local campus program is becoming primarily focused on training leaders specifically for the reproducing church model. We are working closely with ministry partners in Canada to expand the Kingdom there through this means. I should mention that after a few years godly men and women in Canada stood up to those who were slandering us before and the Lord has brought about a tremendous renewal of our ministry there. He is always faithful.

Two students came to attend Vision Bible College and quickly became part of the staff. Pastor Derrick Farrell and his wife Heather have been instrumental in leadership as things have grown. There are many others and I won’t try to mention them all. One of the marks of the ministry has been the number and the quality of leaders that have been trained up here. Many have stayed and others are in active ministry elsewhere.

So now we are beginning another church plant in Parma, Idaho and training the leadership for a third congregation that we intend to start in two years. We have the full training program in place for other churches to utilize and we are preparing a DVD teaching series on how churches can implement the same methods in their own areas. Much of this can be found in ministries based on what is known as the “multi-site” approach to church planting but we didn’t know about that when we started. Really the “model” ( in church planting lingo) came about through the Study of God’s Word and many years of experience. We will cover more of that in the “Vision For The Future” section of the website and written materials.

After twenty years of active ministry we are still evangelizing, still discipling, still training leaders, and now we are planting churches. Most people that live in areas where we do not have a Vision Community Church know us from the Lifeline music, and that continues to be a vital part of the outreach. In fact we are adding more bands to minister along side of the Lifeline group. As the ministry continues to grow I can see that our feet are planted firmly on the ground and our hearts are planted firmly in the Lord. Through the trials and tribulations, the victories and advances, we haven’t lost sight of the simple truth that people need the Lord. We’ve just grown in our ability to reach them. I pray that the future will hold even greater things as we seek to walk with our Savior.

We sincerely appreciate your taking the time to learn about what God is doing through this group of people. I hope you will come and visit us sometime. You will find us to be simple and real people who love the Lord. Please let us know if we can answer any questions or help in any way. The future that is before us is very exciting. We would love to have you join us as we seek to serve the Lord.

Because He lives!

Benje Graves