In December 2018, Kira and Jesper Jeppesen moved to Toronto with the intention of planting a church in the heart of Canada’s biggest city.
Kira is from Waterloo, Canada, and Jesper is from Denmark.

Before coming to Toronto, Jesper served as a young adult pastor for four years. In 2015, he planted his first church, the first Haven Church plant, in the city of Aarhus, Denmark.

Kira and Jesper had long felt a clear call to move to Toronto to start a church.

In February 2019, they hosted an interest night at Wycliffe College to share their vision and see if anyone wanted to join a group with the aim of starting this church.

Nine people said yes, joining the initial launch team, so now 11 people were working to launch the church in September.

Over the next seven months, we met for dinner gatherings and DNA nights to build up this new community, instilling the vision, values, and culture we wanted to have.

During this time, God slowly added people to this group.

On September 17th, 2019, we had our launch service at Mazzoleni Hall, and by God’s grace, around 150 people showed up, and a young, new church was started.

For the next six months, the new church was being built, the vision was being embraced, and a small new church was growing.

Then everything changed in March 2020 when the pandemic struck globally, including Toronto.

So we had to pivot.

For the next two years, we navigated the pandemic with God’s grace, striving to fulfill the mission to the best of our abilities.

These were a difficult two years, not only for our city but also for a new church.

Finally, in April 2022, we emerged from the pandemic and spent the next year getting back into healthy rhythms and continuing with the mission that God has given us.

Over the last couple of years, we have seen God continue to bless us as we strive to become the church God has called us to be.

We are still in the early stages as a church, and we believe God is still only writing chapter one of our story.

Story

In February 2019, they hosted an interest night at Wycliffe College to share their vision and see if anyone wanted to join a group with the aim of starting this church.

On September 17th, 2019, we had our launch service at Mazzoleni Hall, and by God’s grace, around 150 people showed up, and a young, new church was started.

Finally, in April 2022, we emerged from the pandemic and spent the next year getting back into healthy rhythms and continuing with the mission that God has given us.

We are still in the early stages as a church, and we believe God is still only writing chapter one of our story.

We can’t wait to see what He is going to write in the future.