Our History

Living Hope Church, formerly Bethel Christian Church (at the University of Chicago) was launched by Pastors Brad Beier and Seesun Yoo as a satellite congregation of Bethel Christian Church (Chicago northside). We were experimenting by transplanting Bethel's worship format to the University location and after only one week of advertising, we had twelve people on our first Sunday worship in October 2003. Within one month, we had grown quickly into a diverse group of about forty students from many ethnic & religious backgrounds, & eventually neighbors from the community. Over the years, we've been connected with hundreds of lives, many who grow and serve with us for a few years and eventually move out the neighborhood, out of state or even out of the U.S. For seven years, we have been two congregations of one church under the care of one group of elders. As our mission and vision for the south side has taken on its own unique personality, we've sensed that the time had come to continue our work, but with a new name, new leadership structure, and a new location. In October 2010, Bethel south voted to be named Living Hope Church, launched out as a new mission church under the leadership of the Chicago Metro Presbytery, and signed a contract to purchase and renovate an abandoned building in the Woodlawn neighborhood immediately to the south of the University of Chicago.