Wait, but which Alliance Bible Church? Did you know there were three in our district?  One in Richmond, IN, one in McHenry, IL, and one in Bartlett, IL.  The one we are referring to here is the Alliance Bible Church in Bartlett, IL.

In April, the original launch team (originating from Lombard Bible Church) was invited to revisit the founding vision of planting Alliance Bible Church (Easter Sunday).  Rev. Ed Bernard, the founding pastor, captured it in a video interview, “We started by praying for the people of Bartlett – all night prayer events, sometimes. We collected names as we met people and prayed for God to convict them and help them and open their lives.  We got people saved because of our prayer times!  And then we got to teach them how to pray! They’d never prayed before, so we got to teach them how to pray, and they were thrilled with it! And that was another way God helped build a church. We got an office downtown to overlap meet people in Bartlett.  We had men’s Bible studies in Denny’s and Lombard Bible Church let us use their baptismal for new believers.  By September we had 25 new people from Bartlett and Hanover wanting to be members.  We were officially a church!”

As Pastor Alex, the current pastor in Bartlett, listened to Ed recollect the beginnings of the church in Bartlett, he commented, “The stories of individuals that you saw learn how to pray, come to Christ – those individual stories made the planting of the church worth it to you.”

“Yeah,” Ed chimed in heartily, “it was worth it!” As Psalm 121:3 reads, “The Lord has done great things and we are filled with joy.”

In 2021 the elders led the Bartlett church to collectively acknowledge that they cannot stay the same if they are going to continue thriving on Jesus’ mission into the future. “This started a discovery process whereby we are discerning the changes God wants us to make,” Alex explained. “One of the struggles for our church is that the vision for why we exist and what we’re trying to accomplish was not very clear.” As the elders continued to listen and discern what the Lord was leading them into, it seemed that this church needed to adopt a new identity that would clarify the “why”.

And so also in April, the church in Bartlett revealed their new name, Renovation Church, and looked forward, building on the foundation already laid. 

“Our new name, Renovation Church, clarifies our ‘why’ – we are stories God is writing about Jesus making things new,” Alex explains. “Renovation literally means  to make something new. Our lives and our words as Jesus followers exist to tell others the stories of how Jesus makes things new.” After looking back on the last 40 years, it is so fitting that their new vision is, “We are stories God is writing about Jesus making things new.”

Upon this vision, Renovation church has three core values:

• B.L.E.S.S. (Begin with prayer, Listen, Eat, Serve, Story)
• Belong
• Become

Following is an excerpt from their new church web site, renovateus.org:

The word “Renovation” literally means to make something new. Jesus came to extend hospitality to people that might make us new. When we experienced his hospitality and believed his message, we became different. The Bible says that when we believe and follow Jesus we become new creations through the power of his death and resurrection. We’re welcomed into restored relationship with our Creator and our stories of renewal are stories that we live and share among friends and neighbors that all might know that Jesus hospitably invites us into a renewed life.