Meet the Team | Heather Evans
I’m someone who loves an adventure, especially when it comes to serving God. It took a long time to discover this about myself, but now that I have realized God’s purpose for me, I’m loving life like never before!
I have been a part of the ministry team at Grace Church in Cape Coral for about twenty years now, and that is a journey that has taken many exciting twists and turns along the way. I am grateful for every opportunity I’ve had to lead ministries for people of all ages and backgrounds including, children, youth, and local reach. Presently I serve as the campus pastor of our smallest campus, the Fort Myers Trinity Campus, where my father served about thirty years ago. I also serve as the Director of Fresh Expressions at our main campus.
About three years ago, I attended a Fresh Expressions Vision Day held at Grace Church, and the Holy Spirit revealed a burning desire in me to venture outside the walls of the church to minister to people in ways that had never occurred to me before. No one was more surprised by this than me! I immediately began to investigate everything I could get my hands on that had anything to do with Fresh Expressions of church.
Not long after that, I felt a very distinct Macedonian call to an area in North Fort Myers named Suncoast Estates which is the second largest trailer park in the United States. This is a blighted community wrought with crime, drugs, slum lords, and extreme poverty. With volunteers from Grace we began to build relationships with residents in this community through a children’s program and a women’s Bible study held in one of the homes.
Several months later we launched a dinner church called Eat, Pray, Love at the local community center, and we have seen God do amazing work through this Fresh Expression of Church. I have grown to love the dinner church model for Fresh Expressions because I have seen first-hand how God will use it to transform broken people, hurting communities, and unite traditional church families in mission. We have since launched an additional dinner church as well as a breakfast church in neighboring communities. I’m so excited about the potential that the Florida Dinner Church Initiative has for the FLUMC!
In addition to dinner church I oversee a variety of Fresh Expressions we are experimenting with at Grace, including the Gathering Table Café and Consignment Shop, Simply Create, Ortiz Flea Market, Mind, Body and Soul, and others. I love the variety of people, places, and ways God uses Fresh Expressions!
In my free time, I love hanging out by the pool with my husband and our three almost grown kids. I also like to work out my creativity by painting and tinkering with the Cricut machine.
