Neighborhood Church

Pastor Jim Coyle grew up in a military family and his father and family retired into Las Vegas, Nevada in 1963. Raised in a Catholic home, Jim fought his way through school, gangs and girls. He was a musician on the Vegas Strip at a young age and was pretty popular in high school and college. He accepted Jesus into his heart at the age of 19 (April 1976) and his soul, mind and body fell passionately and madly in love with Jesus. Jim toured the states doing concerts and sharing his testimony. In 1983 Jim was ordained through the Calvary Chapel organization at a church of 7,000 in Las Vegas.

Dr. Coyle was an associate pastor for several years. In 2001, God gave him marching orders and he started a new church his living room. The group, New Song Christian Fellowship, grew to 300 over 3 years and had an incredible journey.

In 2003, Dr. Coyle visited Iowa (his wife?s home town of 200 people). God inspired him to move to Iowa. As he puts it "I had to hear His voice because I had been hearing my wife?s voice for many years." He had been a Pastor in the Las Vegas area for 22 years when they planned their move to Iowa to raise their kids and start a new church.

Dr. Coyle move his family to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and then filed the appropriate paperwork with the Secretary of State in Iowa and received the Certificate of Authority on August 22nd, 2005 to be recognized as a new church in Cedar Rapids.

During that time in Cedar Rapids, the group of believers started meeting at the Stoney Point YMCA in Cedar Rapids, when Dr. Coyle was deployed to Hurricane Katrina as a federal Chaplain and Mental Health Specialist. He spent approximately 4 months at various locations in the gulf area, and upon his return, the group purchased a church building at 1300 6th St NW, Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52405 (March 31, 2006). They renamed the church “Ellis Community” to take on the identity of the neighborhood they served.

In 2008, the floods in Cedar Rapids destroyed the facilities in which the Ellis Community congregation had met and from which they based their ministry. In 2009, the congregation made the difficult decision to move forward into a different neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, and they renamed their congregation "Neighborhood Church" to let the neighborhood know, and to remind new congregants, that the church will be serving the neighborhood in the name of Jesus Christ.