Loren Simpson, founder & CEO:

Loren came to ISU from Clarion, Iowa in 1969 to play football, chase girls and become an electrical engineer. Four things happened that fall that caused him to fall in love with Jesus: he failed his Navy ROTC eye exam and couldn’t enter the program. He realized that he was too small for big 8 football. He flunked his first chem 101 exam. And he lost his girlfriend forever, after a serious, 2 year, relationship. With Viet Nam raging, and anger dominating his life, he wondered what was life all about as it did many others back then. Then Jesus found him. He and 1000s of others at ISU became part of the Jesus Revolution. They discovered a meaningful, personal relationship with God and others in His family. Soon engineering lost its attraction as he gave himself to evangelism and bible teaching. Soon, he felt called to give himself to church leadership. After receiving a BA and MA from Wheaton College, and seminary degree, he began work as a pastor in the United Methodist Church. After 8 years there, he joined the Association of Vineyard Churches and helped start 4 Vineyard churches in Iowa. Evangelism, and signs and wonders followed him until the early 1990s. The first person he prayed for was deaf. God healed her, and she got her hearing back! After 100s of stories like that, the stories started getting old and soon the miracles seemed to stop. When he asked why, God told him, “that was my “Baskin Robbins sample spoon. There is plenty more in the back but you have to pray for it!” So we have - for forty years now. God, Do It Again!

Then in 1997, after becoming the lead pastor of the Des Moines Vineyard, he thought he had arrived at his life’s work in the heartland. Instead, within a year, Loren found himself caving into fear, took money from the church, and after confessing his sin, lost his position as pastor. He was told that he would never lead a church again. After spending the next 20 years in a prison of his own making, wondering if God could or would ever use him again, God healed him of the trauma from his childhood, and the mistakes of his past. (by the way, he did pay back what he took)

Now he is learning that the “calling and election of God is irrevocable”. Just like Joseph in Ps 105:16-21, “his feet were bruised by shackles and his soul was held by iron. God’s promise to Joseph purged his character until it was time for his dreams to come true. Eventually, the king of Egypt sent for him, setting him free at last. Then Joseph was put in charge of everything under the king; ” He is soooo thankful that God included stories like Moses, Jacob, and David. Now he is discovering that God is inviting him to go where he has never been before. He has recently asked him to step into his identity, call up the Vintage, rally the troops, and set the table for revival on college campuses as a partner with a present God not a manager for an absent one.