Our History - Living Water Community Church

Timeline:

1957: Reba Place Fellowship (RPF)established in Evanston, IL
1960’s: RPF operates as a communal house church in the Anabaptist tradition
1970’s: Charismatic renewal comes, along with households, healing ministry, and denominational membership in Illinois Mennonite Conference
1980’s: Reba Place Church (RPC) birthed from RPF as a house of prayer for all nations
1990’s: RPC focuses on racial reconciliation & neighborhood evangelism
1988-95: RPC’s “tent” (Isaiah 54:1-3) expands into Rogers Park
How we’ve grown:
Invitation issued to become part of a Reba “swarm” to Chicago in 1985
Chose Rogers Park as our target community and about 10 people began relocating there in 1987
Learned a Reba member had been praying Reba would start something in Rogers Park
Picked housing with intentional proximity to one another
Became a church small group in RPC Evanston in 1988
Multiplied into 3 groups, then five
Called an African-American pastor of the leadership team in 1994
Started public worship service in Rogers Park Sept. 1995, renting space from UCRP
Chose the new name of Living Water Community Church in 2000, at which point the church included 88 adults and 63 children