The History of Our Church

The Beginning of Our Church

Heart of God Fellowship actually began back in the early 90’s when Bob and Debbie Kaps felt God’s calling on their lives to begin a small, in-home bible study and fellowship group on Thursday evenings from their house in Wellington, MO. But as God will sometimes do, He took something relatively small and blessed it and expanded it. Over time the small bible study grew into full-on church services held in the Kaps family’s living room with as many as 20 or 30 people in attendance. And even after God called the Kaps family to move from Wellington to Buckner, MO in the fall of 1996, the strong group of loyal Heart of God Fellowship attendees continued their Thursday night meetings in the Kaps family’s new home.

As it turned out, the Kaps family’s new home in Buckner was located on the same block as a small Baptist church, which provided a unique opportunity for the growing home fellowship that had long since been testing the capacity of the Kaps’ home. Pastor Bob approached a couple members of the Baptist church about renting out the sanctuary on Thursday evenings — thinking it would be a good way for the HOG Fellowship to expand their meeting space and that since they met on Thursdays it would not interfere with the Baptist church’s own meetings and services. Instead he found that the church had no pastor and only two regular attenders, a pair of faithful women who had been continuing to pray for the church. So after meeting the women, talking with them, and having a lot of prayerful consideration, in 1997 the small church became the new home for the Heart of God Fellowship.

For a few years after that, Heart of God grew both in the size of the congregation and in their outreach and service to the community in Buckner, becoming a well-known church in the relatively small town, and even buying a large plot of land on which God had given Pastor Bob a vision for some day building a brand new facility. Heart of God stayed in that quaint, white church building until 2003 when God opened a new door of opportunity to move into a slightly larger church building in nearby Independence, MO. Heart of God ended up being in Independence for only a short period of time, though before God opened yet another door by bringing a buyer to purchase the church in Independence. The surplus from the sale provided the funds needed to begin construction on the land that Heart of God had purchased years before back in Buckner.

So after less than two years in Independence, Heart of God moved back to Buckner as construction began on a brand new 17,000 square foot church building. During construction, the Heart of God family met for about a year in a building that was graciously made available by Sibley Orchards, which was conveniently located just across the street from the site of construction. After many hours of hard work and volunteering by church members, Heart of God Fellowship’s new facility officially opened on September 11, 2005, and is still operating at that location today.