New Hope Community Church holds first services

The Ivy performance and event venue at the corner of K and 11th streets in Aurora began its life as the home of the Evangelical United Brethren Church, but continues to function as a house of worship even today. And over the past two Sunday mornings Pastor Mike Brill has led worship services there for a new congregation to be called New Hope Community Church. The first service had an attendance of 17. 
A native of Canton, Ohio, Brill grew up during the 1960s and, like many of his generation, got caught up in the drug, alcohol and rock music culture of the day. But he says all that changed in 1972.
“As a part of the ‘Jesus Revolution,’ I came to have a relationship with the Lord,” he said. “As a result, I ended up going to a Bible college to study for pastoral ministry. And so from Canton, I went to school in Missouri, and then we moved to Washington state. I was involved in ministry up there, but then I got involved in the juvenile system as a counselor, and just ended up liking it, because there were a lot of kids that had a background that I was familiar with.”
After moving on to working at a maximum security facility for violent juvenile offenders in Colorado for several years, Brill and his wife, Cindy, moved to Aurora in 1996 to work for several years as the chaplain and Bible teacher at Nebraska Christian Schools in Central City. He later served as interim pastor at churches in Fairbury, York, Marquette and Polk and served as pastor of Stromsburg Baptist Church from 2020 to 2024. 
For the past 15 years Brill has also led a Wednesday morning Bible study at the Ivy, which draws members from several local churches. He said he has been urged by local folks for some time now to start a new congregation in Aurora. 
“For whatever reason there are a lot of people that drive all four directions outside of Aurora, to go to church,” he said. “There are good churches in town, but for whatever reason many of them tell me that they would like to be in Aurora. And they just said, ‘If you ever start a church, let me know.’ And so I kept hearing that and hearing that and hearing that and I felt there were a lot of people during COVID that quit going to church and haven’t gone back yet, and they do what I call ‘underwear church.’ They watch something on TV... Matter of fact, we had a person our first Sunday who her and her husband had not gone to church since COVID. So you have this need in Aurora, you have 4,000 plus people, and certainly not everybody in Aurora has a personal relationship with the Lord. So there’s a need.”
Brill said it’s hard to be truly involved with a church when it’s located many miles away.
“The word church means ‘assembly,’ so it’s really hard to be in community when the church is not in the community,” he said. “And so these people that do drive out of town, I just find a lot of them maybe go to the service, but not every week. And if they do go, that’s about all they go to. But when something happens, when there’s a sickness or there’s some other kind of a need, they’re not connected to where people can help.”
However, Brill said his expectation is not necessarily to draw people away from other churches.
“In Luke chapter five it says the people drew near to hear the Word of God, so that’s going to be our focus,” he said. “People want to know what the Bible says about what’s going on right now. How does this relate? And if you do that, my experience is that people will come, and you can have fancy music, and you can have good teaching, but if you don’t have good community, if people aren’t really loving one another they generally aren’t going to stick around. So that’s kind of where I’m coming from and what our vision is – to reach people in Aurora who don’t know the Lord, and to create a place where people who do know the Lord can come and not be driving however far out of town.”
The new church is affiliated with a group of churches known as “Converge” and will be part of that organization’s Heartland district based in Sioux Falls, S.D., which includes 60 congregations scattered from North Dakota to Oklahoma. 
New Hope’s services begin at 10 a.m. Sunday morning and are followed by a time of fellowship from 11 to 11:45. At this time there is no Sunday school offered, however, Brill is currently teaching a series of lessons on the end times which is held on Sunday evenings at the Ivy. He said between 40 and 50 people from several area churches have been attending.  
Those seeking more information about the church may contact Brill at 402-694-1322.