History

The following is a brief history of Vision Christian Family.

Vision Christian Family is one of Ipswich's most established Christian churches, serving the Ipswich community and surrounding areas including Booval, since 1975.

Early History

The church came out of the Christian Outreach Centre movement, founded by pastor Clark Taylor 23 June 1974, when 25 people met together in his loungeroom in Keperra, Brisbane. Coming from a Methodist background, Clark joined with Pastor Trevor Chandler to Pastor the Windsor Full Gospel Church in 1970. You can learn more about Clark Taylor and COC here. Clark Taylor's brother, Max and his wife Julie, began a home meeting in Ipswich before moving to Red Cross Hall in Foote Lane in April 1975 as numbers grew.

Max and Julie left to pioneer in Grafton and Geoff and Susie Wilson became the pastors in December 1977.

The East Street building was sold and the church needed a new home base. In July, 1978, the National Hall (now Cambrian Choir) was rented for individual meetings. The National Hall was only home for six months before another move to the Palais Royal building, then a relatively new five story complex in the heart of the city.

Vision Centre became an independent church in 1980 Lloyd Averill, then with Glad Tidings Tabernacle in Brisbane (which later became Hope Centre), became the church’s first covering. In 1990 Vision joined Christian Life Churches International, a fellowship of like minded churches in Australia and abroad under Trevor Chandler. This group then joined with two other, like-minded church groups to become A2A (Acts 2 Alliance) in 2012.

As an example of early outreach activity, in 1984 alone Vision held almost thirty outreaches – on the streets, in aged care homes, at the Ipswich, Gatton and other town shows, at fetes, shopping centres and in other churches. In all, around five thousand people, were ministered to. At this time, the church was meeting at the‘La Palette’ building 23 South Station Road, North Booval.

Vision moved to its current location, 58 Gledson St, North Booval in 1990.

School

In 1982 the church began its own Christian Primary school using the Accelerated Christian Education (A.C.E.) program. Ross Dakin was the principal and our initial teachers were Bev Gosling and Denise Esterman (wife of Pastor Vince Esterman from Ipswich Christian Life Centre). Paul Truasheim would join them a year later. Unfortunately, the governments of the day, both federally and state, made it increasingly difficult from the outset. Their funding was never enough for the smaller number of students and the school’s solid attempts to have all teaching materials strictly adhere to the Australian curriculum, was never deemed adequate. In 1992 and after 11 years, the school closed but with a sense of God’s commendation.

Current Day

Vision Christian Family joined the Crosslink Christian Network along with a number of South East QLD churches in 2021. Crosslink is an Australia-wide network characterised by humble leadership, mentoring relationships, accountability, unity and Christ-centred theology (Click here for more information regarding Crosslink). They are pentecostal but distinct from the ACC denomination in a number of ways.

Geoff and Theresa Wilson handed over to pastors John and Jocie Meadth in 2020. John had been in the Victorian Police Force before taking up ministry roles under Pastor Hal Oxley in Life Ministry Church in Melbourne. John and Jocie led their own churches in Healesville in Victoria and then in Haiti. They returned to Australia to take up the assistant leadership role at Catalyst Church in Ipswich before accepting the invitation to lead Vision Christian Family in 2020.

Upon retiring in 2026, Tom Anderson and family joined the church as pastor from Catalyst Church, Brassall, where he was the Online Pastor, pioneering Haven Together and other innovative online ministry initiatives. Tom and his wife Elise started a youth ministry during their time at an Anglican Church in Far North Queensland and served together as youth leaders as young adults at Arana Hills Church of Christ, where they met.

About Vision

Vision aims to be a caring and empowering community of God’s people, bringing healing and restoring hope through a life-changing encounter with Jesus Christ.

We believe in seeing people wonderfully transformed by God’s Word and Spirit and living as real followers of Jesus. We believe Jesus has given us discipleship as the way to see this happen.

Our Sunday church services in Ipswich run at 9:30am at 58 Gledson Street, North Booval, and are also available to watch live online. As a family-focused church in Ipswich QLD, we have a kids church during services, men's and women's ministry, connect groups and meet weekly to pray.

We stand on Biblical truth and believe we're all called to shared participation in God's mission using the variety of gifts He gives through the Holy Spirit. We seek unity amongst Ipswich's churches, the discipling to maturity of all believers and a deep dependence on the Holy Spirit through prayer.

Vision Christian Family is a registered non-profit organisation and operates for the glory of God and the benefit of the Ipswich community.