About Us
Vision:
Our passion is to build communities that are loyal to Jesus
Values:
- We worship hard and pray hard – we think Jesus is central to everything
- We preach grace not guilt – otherwise people don’t really change
- We embrace the Word and the Spirit – the Bible is about a person who speaks and acts
- We serve the needs of the city and share about Jesus
- We think people are awesome
- We innovate where it matters and imitate … where it matters
- We value the organic and the organized
- We expect quality – but realize that everyone makes mistakes
- We intentionally make space for new leaders
- We build strong teams and turn them loose
- We love starting and growing churches
History
Currently we don’t have much history, but we are making it right now! Wanna help? Matt Sweetman is the founder of Destination Church and will be looking to form a leadership team in the future as things begin to develop and leaders arise. That’s what leaders do. They show up! Watch this space, or if you are a leader, fill the space.
Matt’s Bio
I was born in 1979 in Brighton, England and became a Christian early on. After a powerful encounter with God I had an unquenchable zeal to share the gospel at school. I preached the gospel to my class and held weekly prayer meetings and Bible studies. A number of friends found faith in Christ through this awakening. This experience has shaped me forever.
By the age of 18 I found myself backslidden and apathetic for God. Thankfully God spoke to a friend who called me and offered me a position working with a youth group at a church. God turned my life around and called me immediately back to serving his purposes. I remember weeping before the Lord after I received that phone call. I remembered His goodness.
I always knew I had a calling on my life. I knew that I was destined to lead and create something new. In my 20’s I created a feature length movie, released a couple of songs on a joint album and taught myself web site design and development. I’ve always been drawn towards challenge, innovation and entrepreneurship. I’ve been self-employed for 3 years and have excelled in various industries.
Heather, my wife, grew up in the Midwest with church planting parents. Her father has planted 3 churches and sent out multiple leaders to start new churches. So, you can be certain that this kind of attitude and adventure is on both sides of our relationship. We are already a missional family unit.
God clearly spoke to me at work one day about starting a new church. The Holy Spirit whispered to me “I’m with you all the way!” It was a broad promise but it was all I needed. After passing a comprehensive church planter assessment I took the plunge and left behind a successful marketing career in Kansas City and headed to St. Louis for an intensive year of training. Sometime after that God spoke to my wife and I independently about moving to Chicago after our year of Church Planting Training.
And here we are. My wife and our two sons, Jones and Macrae, have found Chicago as our new home and now we know that God had always planned for us to be in this city to start a new church. He has already joined others to help us pioneer this new work and perhaps he is calling you as well?
