New Life Church

New Life Church was officially registered in Kiev in 1991, right after the collapse of the Soviet Union. New Life became one of the first churches to accept a contemporary style of worship and the gathering counted more than one thousand church members. Due to its active involvement in evangelism and outreach campaigns, many new churches were established all around the country. Very soon a national network of churches (Union of Independent Evangelical Churches of Ukraine) was formed.

Due to Russian invasion in Eastern Ukraine since 2014, annexation of the Crimean Peninsula, problems of more than one million refugees/IDPs from the occupied Donbas, and poor economic situations, many Ukrainians faced a new wave of challenges. Since the country’s independence from the USSR, nearly 7 million citizens have left the country.

For 20 years, New Life Church had been meeting in an Academy downtown. In 2018, the new leadership of that institution forbid the church to rent the facility. Suddenly the congregation was pushed out “on the street.” There was a small tent for the youth, and small offices, but they could not hold one thousand people and 40 ministries. Nevertheless, the church members stayed together as one, and continued to gather...in the open air! Rain or snow, brothers and sisters were there to worship the Lord!

As Amy and Alan Capps became the ambassadors of New Life Church in the U.S., a number of divine appointments happened. Pastor Anatoly met Kelvin Smith, pastor of Steele Creek Church. Moved by his story, Pastor Kelvin called his friend, Jim McGarry, who own a company specializing in large prefabricated facilities installations. Having heard the story, Jim decided to give away one of his facilities (1000 m2) as a gift for New Life Church!

International partners from North Carolina, California, Norway, Sweden and others joined in the efforts to make all of this possible, and soon the “tent” crossed the ocean and was quickly assembled. The church started using the new facility right away and was filled with worship, prayer, and the preaching and teaching of God’s Word.