Pastor Tim Wheeler said the Vineyard Church tries to balance its ministry between being biblically rooted, culturally relevant and spiritually powerful.

Wheeler, his wife and several other members of the Vineyard community are currently working on opening a church on Seventh Street, east of Old Main.

The church will be a part a larger group of Vineyard Churches with campuses across the nation. Wheeler said the Charleston “campus” of Vineyard will likely have its first service 9:15 a.m. and 11 a.m. on September 30.

Currently, Wheeler said groups of Vineyard’s members have been meeting at the church on Sunday evenings.

He said Vineyard is always hoping to connect with people and that students will likely see them on campus doing giveaways.

“We hope to have a good college ministry,” Wheeler said.

He said even though Vineyard will be very close to Eastern’s campus, it will not be exclusively aimed at college students.

“We’re a real diverse group,” Wheeler said. “We’re really a place for anybody here.”

As Vineyard gets established, Wheeler said they will likely try and provide services needed in the community like the local food pantry.

He said Vineyard will not aim to compete with or be better than other churches in the area, but will instead work with them when they can.

Services at Vineyard will be contemporary and include music, Wheeler said.

“Stylistically we want to be culturally relevant,” Wheeler said. “We want to speak the language of the culture.”

He said the building only recently got sound equipment, but the location they are renting does not require too many significant renovations. Wheeler said they hope to improve their signage, set up a coffee-and-welcome center and decorate their kids area with castle designs to better fit their theme.

Wheeler said he and his wife were actively involved in the Vineyard Church in Syracuse, N.Y., and when they moved to the Midwest in 2009 they visited the Vineyard location in Champaign. From there they decided to help start the Vineyard location in Charleston.

“We just kind of realized God was calling us,” Wheeler said. “Not just Charleston specifically but new church work.”

He said he and the church hope to have real conversations with people.

“There’s a lot of lonely people. How do we have conversations with those people?” Vineyard said. “It’s OK if we disagree.”

Wheeler said their goal is to continue the ministry of Jesus and to help people develop a connection with a community of hope in a real way that changes their lives.

“There’s a lot of people disconnected from Jesus,” Wheeler said. “We believe God is real and he’s crazy about the world.”

Seth Schroeder can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].