ABOUT US

Heart and Soul was founded by Peter and Shirley Shaffer in 1998.  They both had a heart for reaching the inner city of Rochester NY.  In September 2005 the founding pastors went on to pursue other opportunities and Heart and Soul asked Pastor Louis and his late wife Joanne to become Pastors at  Heart and Soul.  During those early years, God began placing a burden on our hearts for the families and individuals who call the inner city of Rochester home.  God opened our eyes to see both the great need but also the amazing possibilities that are right here in our neighborhood.  Little by little, one life at a time, one family at a time, God is beginning to do a great work among us, and we believe the best is yet to come.  

We had to move out of this building for a few years because it needed significant renovation.  There was a time when we didn’t have a building to call our own, or significant resources, but God has always provided!  Through different sets of miracles, from one time donations, to people who had gifts in construction and architecture, to an army of volunteers that came to help, God provided both the resources and the people to help completely renovate this building that you are sitting in today and allow Heart and Soul to return to its original church home in September 2010.    

In December 2013, Heart and Soul went through a season of healing after the loss of one of our Pastors, Pastor Joanne.  Through it all however, always remaining committed to God’s dream of seeing our community transformed for the sake of Christ.  Pastor Joanne died believing that greater things were yet to come for our inner city, and we still believe that today.  

When I (Pastor Louis) began Pastoring here in 2005, there were only a few families and individuals attending Heart and Soul.   Today our attendance is between 60-80 persons on any given Sunday and we are so thankful for each and every one of them.  However we believe that God wants to touch so many more lives and part of this class today is to help dream together how  all of us can pray, believe, and work towards bringing hope, belonging, and purpose to our community through a relationship with Jesus.  These last few years, people have had their lives changed, baptized, and many have made decisions for Christ, but our heart is to invite many more on the journey towards transformation and to choose to become a part of our church family.    

The vision of Heart and Soul is to help people find hope, belonging and purpose through a relationship with Jesus Christ.  

We also believe that Hope comes from Connecting to God, Belonging comes from Connecting to Others, and Purpose comes as we learn to Share God’s love in our own unique ways.  

“I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people.”

– Ephesians 1:17-18