Statement on Closing the Queen City Vineyard

February 17th, 2026

To everyone in our wonderful little community,

I am sad to announce that we are closing the Queen City Vineyard Church. We will have our last Sunday service this Sunday, February 22nd. Additionally, we will hold a Zoom call at 6:30 pm on Wednesday, February 18th for any of you to ask questions and talk through what is happening.

Why are we closing?

All situations like this are complicated and nuanced, and I could write for hours about everything that went right and everything that went wrong, but the core answer is pretty simple. We are closing because we do not have enough people or resources to continue gathering as an established church on mission to worship, disciple, evangelize, and serve. 

Please notice I used the word “continue.” I want to be very clear that, although we have been small and struggled to grow, we have successfully been a church, the Church, worshipping, discipling, evangelizing, and serving. It has been a joy and an honor to watch you all grow and mature in the faith. We are not closing because we have failed the mission of the church, we are closing because we simply don’t have the people and resources we need to move forward. 

How did we get here?

I’d like to briefly explain how we came to this situation. Queen City Vineyard launched six months ago, on September 7th, 2025. It was a lovely service, but it was not successful in what a launch is supposed to be: a time to invite people and grow. As I realized our size and situation in the weeks after the launch, I had to acknowledge that I was not doing well. This led me into therapy and regular meetings with mentors. Through this, I saw that I had been far unhealthier than I knew, and it had been going on for a long time. In the year of preparing for our launch, I had grown accustomed to a level of pain, depression, anxiety, and panic that I normalized and tried to push through for months. By the summer of 2025, it was difficult for me to work at all without experiencing near panic attacks. As you could imagine, this impacted my ability to lead, recruit, promote, prepare for the launch, etc. It was bad, and by late 2025 I was on the edge of a collapse.

I’m incredibly happy to tell you that through much grace, hard work in therapy, and lots of prayer, I am in a much better place. Life is different now. I have joy and peace for the first time in a long, long time. Christ saved me from trudging through years of depression and despair. However, this work took time. And during that time, we couldn’t do the big things we needed in order to try to grow the church.

In the midst of all this, I’m proud of what we were able to do, what you were able to do. We fed people, saw people healed, served our community, and served and loved each other. We punched above our weight and, through grace and the Spirit, accomplished more than we should have been able to at our size. But, functioning beyond our capacity in an area with such deep need and crisis is never a survivable long-term strategy. 

What’s next?

My family will take some time to rest and recover. We aren’t moving or leaving on a long sabbatical, we will just be at some friendly churches for a while to breathe and prepare for our next chapter.

In this kind of moment, I can’t make any promises about future plans, but I can tell you what we hope comes next.

Lord willing, after our time of rest, we are going to try again. We hope this is only a pause and refresh for the Queen City Vineyard, not the end. When the time is right, we will start holding interest gatherings and building the team. We’ve learned a lot and grown a lot from this, and I’m excited for what a healthier and more mature version of us can do. And you will be the first to be invited if/when that process begins.

But above all that, what’s next for all of us is what has always been the next step: pay attention to what Jesus is up to, then join in.

Final Thoughts

I cannot express how deeply grateful Shelby and I are for you all. You have endured much. You have been our encouragement in dark and unclear times. You taught us about trust, faithfulness, and joy. You showed us Jesus.

We are praying for you. Please pray for us. I’m so sorry for any pain, sadness, or confusion this is causing you. Keep the faith, walk after Jesus, look for what the Spirit is doing, and keep saying yes.

If you have questions, join our Zoom call on Wednesday, February 18th at 6:30 pm (I will send the link), and we are looking forward to gathering for our last time on Sunday, February 22nd at 3:30 pm.

In Christ,

Nick and Shelby Bettis