OUR STORY

We are Jonny and Libby James, and along with our two children, we moved to Stoke-on-Trent to start The Potteries Vineyard Church. For Libby, who grew up in North Staffordshire, this is a homecoming, and for the rest of us, an exciting new adventure!

We have served and led in various churches and charities in Nottingham, Oxford, London and Torquay, where we married in 2012, before spending seven years as part of the team at the Vineyard church in Reading.

Over a long period we began to wonder if God might be calling us to ‘church plant’ (start a new church) and in early 2020 God gave us a vision for a new Vineyard church in the Potteries and confirmed to us that this is what we were to dedicate the next season of our lives to.

As we got ready to make the move to Stoke we were amazed to begin to connect with several others who felt God was calling them to be part of a Vineyard church in the Potteries, and were wondering how they could do this when one didn’t exist yet! God was building his church!

Our family moved to Stoke-on-Trent in June 2022 and began gathering together those who had heard God’s invitation to join the new church, some who were already local and some who, like us, had moved here from hundreds of miles away.

We are so excited to be here, and to have the privilege of joining in with God’s plans for this region. Our hope is that The Potteries Vineyard will be a community that welcomes friends, neighbours and strangers into a place of belonging, where they can experience the power and presence of God, and be transformed by his love to live with purpose, knowing Jesus and making him known.

The Potteries Vineyard Church officially launched in February 2023 and since then, we have grown and developed in different ways. We now meet regularly as a church for City Sundays, church services and weekly Life Groups. To find out more about what we get up to, hover over the What’s On tab above for more information or get in touch on the Contact page.

We’d love to invite you to come and join us on the adventure!

- Jonny & Libby James