Our fellowship began in 1974 by Vaun Ursel. The church struggled to grow beyond 40 people until 1979, when Ursel stepped aside and Jim Riegel moved his family from Iowa to pastor the church. Under Riegel’s leadership, the church multiplied. Within two years, over 200 people were attending regularly. The name of the church changed to Victory Fellowship Church, then to Victory Christian Fellowship.
Through God’s grace and direction, the property in Burnsville was purchased and the current church structure was built in 1986. In 1985, Victory came into contact with the Vineyard movement and in 1989, joined the Association of Vineyard churches. The name of the church changed again to Victory Vineyard Church. The church grew to over 300 and the following year Victory’s Associate Pastor, Jon Marsden, left with approximately 20 other adults to plant another Vineyard church in nearby Inver Grove Heights. Roger Davin was hired from Duluth, Minnesota to fill the Associate Pastor vacancy and within a year, church attendance at Victory was regularly over 400.
In 1994, the Riegels moved back to Iowa to plant a Vineyard church in Des Moines and Roger Davin was hired as Senior Pastor. In January 2004, the Board of Directors accepted the resignation Davin submitted due to family issues.
In May 2005, Chris & Nicki Reeves became the Vineyard’s new senior pastors. They joined the church after having been previously on staff at Heartland Vineyard Church in Waterloo, IA. In September 2005, Victory Vineyard Church became officially known as South Metro Vineyard Church.
Chris moved us towards being more “Vineyard-like” and in doing so we have experienced more movement of the Holy Spirit. In September of 2007 the Board of Directors accepted the resignation of Chris Reeves and he returned to the Heartland Vineyard Church.”
Securing the Parkwood Drive Property
by Jim Riegel, Pastor from November 1979 - May 1994
I tried to do anything but go through a building program. We were still meeting in Nicollet Junior High School for Sunday and Wednesday night meetings. I knew we eventually needed to have our own facility simply from the standpoint of good stewardship. Another church in the southwestern suburbs of the Twin Cities had leased property at that time for over 11 years, expending over 1.2 million in rent, with nothing to show for it but receipts of payment. So while our leadership team felt we needed to have our own facility, I kept looking for affordable existing buildings with ample parking that were no longer being used. We couldn’t find anything affordable.
At a city-wide prayer meeting of charismatic pastors at the old Jesus People Church at Nicollet and 31st (if I remember the location correctly), I shared our need with the circle of pastors and leaders I was praying with. One pastor said he had a word for me and our church, then Victory Fellowship Church. It was “red rock”. I asked him what that meant and he said he didn’t know but that we’d have to pray for understanding.
That evening at home at dinner I shared the word with my family and asked them what they thought it meant. Our oldest son Jeff immediately responded: “Dad, this whole area is filled with little red rocks. It’s pretty obvious you’re supposed to buy land to build on.”
I shared this with our elders and they unanimously concluded that this was the direction we were to take as a church body. From that point on I stopped looking for pre-existing buildings to buy as we began the search for property to purchase and build on.
After finding 3 other properties, all in Burnsville, which looked like they had possibilities for building a church structure, I asked the elders to join me in a day of prayer and fasting. We drove to each of the locations: the present Parkwood location; another west and southwest of Burnsville Center near County 5; and another on County 11 south of 138th Street. As we prayed we all sensed that the present Parkwood property was the one that God was leading us toward. A short time later the Lord put it on my heart that, if at all possible, we should talk to the property owner directly to negotiate for the land, offering to buy two acres and asking him to give us three acres as a gift.
There were two different large commercial real estate signs on the property. When I contacted the companies no one knew anything about the property. The listings had expired two or three years earlier. Finally one of the companies gave me the name of one of their commercial realtors whom they thought might know something about the property. After repeated phone calls to this gentleman, he finally got back to me and gave me the name of the property’s owner, Leo Wolk, and suggested I contact him personally. This was one of the things we had prayed for. “Thank You, Lord!”
When I contacted Mr. Wolk he suggested we get together in his office. I shared what our goals and purposes were and submitted our offer to him – to buy two acres and asking him to give us three acres. Within a day or two he got back to me and told me he agreed to our proposal. “Wow”! God had answered our prayer! As part of the agreement, Mr. Wolk stipulated that we do two things: one, pay a finders fee of $1,000 to the realtor who gave us his name; and two, that we pay our share of the sewer and water taxes on the property. We agreed to these additional terms.
Around this time one of our elders, Dick Strysick, had a word from the Lord that we as a church family were going to face an 11th hour situation. We found out what it was a week later when the Burnsville School District informed us that we could meet at Nicollet Junior High School for only 4 more months. As it was, the school district had been more than gracious to us, allowing us to rent Nicollet for almost 2 ½ years, from February of 1980 through June of 1982, more than a year beyond their stated policy for church rentals.
God sovereignly led us to lease space in the Valley Ridge Shopping Center off County Rd 5 and Burnsville Parkway in Burnsville from the Kraus-Anderson Corporation. Our whole leadership team was surprised, however, to find out that the church member who negotiated the contract for us signed a 3-year lease instead of the 2-year lease we asked him to arrange.
This turned out to be a “God thing” as well as we were in Valley Ridge for 3 ½ years, July of 1982 through mid-December of 1985, while we sold church bonds, designed the Parkwood property building, had Vanman Construction build our new facility, and as we grew and reached out as a church family.
We remodeled the 5,000 square feet of leased space at Valley Ridge and moved our entire church operation to that facility – offices, meeting rooms and auditorium seating 125 for two Sunday services. We started raising funds to pay for our new property.
One morning, following Tuesday early morning prayer, one of our deacons and eventual head of our building committee, Carl Voight, who was a quality, experienced house builder, literally charged into our office area and confronted Jon Marsden, our associate pastor, and myself regarding the Parkwood property our leaders had purchased. He told us we were crazy and that it would cost us approximately $175,000 - $200,000 or more just to bring the 60-foot hill we had purchased to a grade we could build on. All we could say is that we felt God led us to buy the property. Carl shook his head and marched out. All Jon and I could do was look at each other and say, “O Lord, what have we done!”
God answered us in an amazingly swift way. Our church secretary handed me a letter that arrived around 10:00 AM from the City of Burnsville engineer’s office. The city engineer first of all apologized for having done soil borings on our new property without securing our permission. Then he informed us that our 60-foot hill was totally composed of gravel material. Then he proposed that in exchange for the gravel, which was needed to re-construct County Road 11, the city would level our property bringing it in line with the property next to us, which Mr. Wolk had dedicated to the city for a park. Also, the city would bring in topsoil and seed our property with grass seed. Another “Wow”! We as leaders had sensed the Lord’s direction. I immediately contacted Carl Voight with the good news, while also admitted we weren’t that smart but God sure knew what He was doing! We obviously agreed to the city’s proposal.
Another “Wow” related to the Parkwood property. A little over a year later we received another letter from the City of Burnsville engineer’s office. It was a check for around $1,200. The city had sold some gravel to a private contractor and had collected payment from him, which they passed along to us. It was the exact amount we yet owed on our property. That was our final payment! It was God’s icing on the cake. God is good!
As a remembrance -- the city left us a number of large boulders from the miracle hill. We placed those at the front entrance to the Parkwood property as a reminder of God’s provision -- ala Joshua 4. (It’s hard to believe for some that from the entrance to the Vineyard’s Parkwood property going northeast there once was a hill 60 feet high.)
