Our History

In the late 1990’s, leaders of Bethany Baptist Church (BBC) in Peoria, IL, began to pray about evangelizing through a new church plant somewhere in the area. Not long after, a dying church in Bartonville, IL asked BBC to consider receiving their property and starting a new work.

In 1997, Art Georges gave his life to Christ and subsequently yielded to the Lord’s call to pastoral ministry. The leadership of BBC sensed Art’s call to ministry and sent him to be trained at The Master’s Seminary in Los Angeles, CA. In 2002, Art completed his Master of Divinity and returned to BBC to begin work on planting a church in Bartonville.

On Easter of 2003, Living Hope Community Church (LHCC) was launched in Bartonville with 30 families commissioned from BBC. Since its beginning, LHCC has doubled in attendance and is continually striving to fulfill the Lord’s mandate to make disciples both near and far.

Since its beginning, LHCC has rented space at Hollis Elementary School in Bartonville for Sunday morning worship services. Additional land was purchased in late 2004, and construction of a new church facility began in mid 2008, with an expected completion by the end of 2008.

LHCC is ministry partners with the Bethany Fellowship of Churches, a fellowship of churches whose aim is to reach people in the greater Peoria area for Jesus Christ. In addition to local discipleship, LHCC partners with the Bethany Fellowship of Churches in supporting missionaries globally. In 2007 LHCC joyfully sent its own missionaries, Andrew & Natalie Debelak and their two sons Hudson and Aiden, to Genoa, Italy to begin planting churches with Avant Ministries.