WHO WE ARE

Hi, we’re Phil and Lisa Crosby and we are the leaders of Darlington Vineyard Church.

Since coming to faith, we have had our lives radically transformed by God. This may sound extreme or strange, if it does, please bear with us, if it doesn’t, also stay with us as we explain.

After a ten year career in the army, serving in countries like Iraq, Bosnia and Kosovo, Phil (Bing) left the army and resettled as a personal trainer, using his Army Physical Training experience to start his own business. This is where we met.

I (Lisa) was working in a long term career in the pharmaceutical industry in IT. We both joined a local Mountain Rescue team because of a shared passion for being in the outdoors, but it was a chance visit to a Church in Leicester to a family event, that led us to want to explore faith. Quite simply we both realised a huge hole in our lives, that no amount of outdoor experiences, good meals or other things could fill.

Fast forwarding a few months from our exploration of faith, we gave up our careers and went to work voluntarily in our local Vineyard Church in Newcastle. If you come along and chat with us, we have so many things to tell about our story there, but for now I’ll keep it to the point!.

After 3 years serving in our local Vineyard as Assistant Pastors, in whatever capacity we were needed, which included leading teams in many different capacities, we had a year where our daughter was born and Bing led a Christian charity which helped ex-offenders find worth & faith. We had no idea that we were being trained and equipped for a life that was going to look remarkably different.

In 2015 were felt called to give up everything, including our cottage that we’d spent 6 years renovating and move overseas to Myanmar (Burma), to serve as missionaries to the very poor and abandoned.

It was in these three years that God worked an incredible transformation in our lives, as individuals, as parents, as a couple and as people trying to love and live like Jesus. After training and equipping local people to minister and care for their own people, God spoke clearly to us, telling us to come back to England and plant Darlington Vineyard Church – something we never thought we would ever do.

If you’re exploring faith or looking for a Church, we’d love to hear from you. Contact us at info@darlingtonvineyard.church, give us a call or track us down on social media from the links on this page.

Have a look at our events over the next few months as we have prayer, small groups, socials and more where we would love to meet you.

God is growing his Church in Darlington and we’ve loved building teams and empowering and releasing leaders, have a look at this page for more about them all.

We’d love to invite you to come and share in this exciting adventure of a radical life of faith, whatever stage of faith (or lack of) that you’re at. Any questions? – ask away!

Blessings, Lisa and Phil xx