In 1998 Eric and Jodi Van Rhee were living and ministering in Santa Clara, California, with their four kids— Rebecca, Rachel, Joshua and Caleb—ranging from newborn to seven years old. Eric and Jodi began to sense a certain “divine discontentment” and a stirring in their hearts, and believed the Lord was bringing a season of great change to their lives. In July of 1998 it became abundantly clear that they were to go out from their Bay Area church, The Coastlands, move to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, and plant a church. They were joined by three other families from The Coastlands who also believed they were to move and partner in this new work, and in January of 1999 the four families “saddled up their horses and blazed a trail” to Draper, Utah, and began planning for the church plant.
In January of 2000 the Adventure held its IPO (Initial Public Opening) at a Hampton Inn. For the next couple of years the church began to grow and outgrow one facility after another, and within its first three years the Adventure met in ELEVEN different locations, but in 2003 finally settled in its current main campus location in Draper. In 2015, the Adventure added an extension campus in American Fork in Utah County. Throughout the years the Adventure has seen the Lord’s faithful hand in the lives of countless people throughout Salt Lake and Utah counties.
In January of 2016, through a miraculous set of circumstances, there was a leadership transition and Jodi, who had been the Worship Pastor and Co-Pastor with Eric, became the senior leader as Eric set his sights globally— particularly in the Philippines, where the Adventure had planted a church—as well as Taiwan and China, where Eric was working with a Chinese film maker with HUGE plans to spread the Good News of Jesus throughout the world by means of film and media.
However, only a few weeks later on February 18, 2016, tragedy struck the Adventure and Van Rhee family as Eric unexpectedly went to be with the Lord. The Adventure went through a season of deep grief and change, but now carries on in the original vision Eric and Jodi and their team have always had—that of seeing the broken made whole, the bound set free, the spiritually dead come to life in Christ, and people released in the calling and purpose for which they were created!
