God is on the move at The Mission! It all started back in 1999 when Dan Kopp quit his engineering job at GM and moved across the country from Michigan to attend seminary in California. After graduating he moved back home and was hired at Kensington Church in Troy where he met Kellie. Dan & Kellie were married in 2004 and a few years into their marriage, they began to wonder what might be next for them?

They found themselves at a prayer & healing meeting on Tuesday nights at the "little white church" in downtown Utica where they met Pastor Tim & his wife Fran. Every Tuesday God got bigger to them... and better! Pastor Tim loved to say "God is good... all the time!" As they got their theology stretched, they wanted to share how they were encountering God with others!

Fast forward a few years. After Dan was hospitalized for 25 days in 2009, they felt like God was saying, "Now is the time" to plant a church. God connected them with Jim Pool who was the church planting coordinator for the Vineyard movement of the Christian faith. So in 2010 Dan transitioned off staff at Kensington, and The Eastside Vineyard Church had it's first-ever "sneak preview" church service (that was our original name!) in October 2010.

By the grace of God, He connected us with Heritage Church in Sterling Heights who graciously offered their building to us to use on Sunday nights for our first year as church. What a blessing that was!

Then God provided an incredible team of volunteers to "help make church happen" every Sunday as we began meeting inside of Shelby Jr. High on Sunday mornings. Our "portable church years" really built our faith and trust in God!

During our first 8 years as a church, we met in 4 different buildings across 4 different ZIP codes until we bought a closed down grocery store. Believe it or not, this was the same building Dan & Kellie were doing "prayer walks" around back in 2006 when they began dreaming about planting a church. Back then they laid hands on its doors and said, "God this would be a great place for a church. If you call us to plant a church, would you give us a building like this one!" Little did they know, God was going to answer that prayer in ways they could not even imagine!

God moved a number of mountains which allowed us to buy the building in 2018. "New. New. Same." was our motto back then. We liked to say we were at a NEW location with a NEW name (we went from being The Eastside Vineyard Church to The Mission) but we were still the SAME church.

And when it comes to who we are, we simply are a church that wants more of God. More of the Father. More of the Son. More of the Holy Spirit.