At the Jar, we love to share what God has given us. 2 Corinthians 4:7 says, “But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us."  In a spiritual sense all of us are ordinary jars and the church is a collection of these jars. We may be made of different materials, but the focus is not on what the outside looks like, it's on the priceless treasure inside. And we love to give that treasure away.

Our Staff

Chris Bunch • Lead Pastor

Chris has been a pastor for over 25 years. He holds a Master of Divinity degree from Bethany Theological Seminary. He and his wife Jennifer have two beautiful girls, Jordan and Shiloh. As a family they enjoy taking walks in their neighborhood & hanging out at home. Chris loves sports (except hockey and curling), is an extremely picky eater, and thinks he’s a good dancer.
Caleb Ferguson • Worship Pastor

Caleb joined the Jar in 2018 as Worship Pastor. He’s in charge of our creative arts: music, monologues, worship paintings, poetry readings, biblical readings, and skits, and he also assists with making videos. Caleb studied at Ivy Tech as well as acting at Ball State. Caleb enjoys riding motorcycles, playing music, and running.
Elli McCormick • JarKids Director

Elli McCormick is married to Shannon and they have a daughter named Violet. Elli is a Taylor University Graduate with a degree in Art Education. She loves spending time with her family and friends, interacting with children, serving at The Jar, being outside, working out and art
Josie Koontz • Media Coordinator and Student Ministry Director

Josie is from Plymouth, Indiana, and is a 2021 Film & Media graduate of Taylor University. She works on our videos, designs graphics, and runs our livestream broadcast of the Sunday Morning Celebrations. She has also taken over Impact and Ignite, our youth groups. Her fiancé, Jakob, loves to serve in Jarkids and Student Ministry. Josie enjoys spending time with her dogs Lola and Pipa, babysitting her nephew, taking photos, and spending time outside.
Emily Skoglund • Small Groups Director

Emily joined the Jar staff in 2012 after teaching math for four years. She coordinates small groups at The Jar and leads our discipleship ministry that helps people grow in their faith. She loves baking, dancing, and spending time with her husband Mikey and their two kids Autumn and Joshua.

Our Story

Our story began in 2003 as God placed it on the heart of pastor Chris Bunch to start a new church, a different kind of church, a church for the unchurched. We started in Chris’s home with 6 adults, 2 kids and one cat (as Chris says, “We counted anything that could breathe!”) and we simply prayed that God would grow our church.

As we thought about a name that would relate to our community we looked at Muncie and all of east central Indiana and saw the historical impact that jar companies have had on the development of the area. In a spiritual sense all of us are ordinary jars and the church is a collection of these jars. We may be made of different materials, but the focus is not on what the outside looks like, but on the priceless treasure inside the jar which is God’s love and grace that dwells in us. This connection between our spiritual lives and the history of east central Indiana is what led us to adopt the name The Jar Community Church.

Our small gathering continued to pray and seek God and at the same time reached out to our community and showed love in practical ways, letting everyone know that regardless of where they were at, that God loved them no matter what.  And God moved. We outgrew our homes and began gathering in the upstairs meeting area of the Downtown YMCA. From there we decided to officially throw our doors open to the community in a more public way with an official launch on October 10, 2004, now meeting in half of the YMCA gym.
As we continued to move forward in faith God has met us every step of the way. We launched Saturday ServeFest to show that small things done with great love really could change our community. Our Sunday celebrations grew to use the entire gym at the Y, then we were blessed with the need to start holding two celebrations on Sunday morning. In 2016 we opened a ministry center near downtown to house our staff and to provide ministry space for those inside and outside The Jar. With that space available we were then able to open The Community Basket, which provides much needed household and personal care items for members of our community.

In October of 2018 God brought us an opportunity to move into a newly renovated space while remaining downtown, and so we moved into the Muncie Civic Theatre. 

God has blessed us greatly as we strive to fulfill our mission to love people into a relationship with Jesus Christ. The Jar is a place where everyone belongs.  We’re just a group of imperfect people who are learning to follow and love Jesus better and we’re excited to see where God is leading us as we continue to do our best to follow Him faithfully.

What's our dream for the future of The Jar?​

Our Beliefs

God and the Bible
At The Jar Community Church we believe that the Bible is God's perfect guidebook for living. God is bigger, better and closer than we can imagine and God shows himself through his son, Jesus Christ. We believe that God made everything in creation and that nothing "just happened." Heaven and hell are real places and death is a beginning, not an end.

Our Relationship with God
We believe grace is the only way to have a relationship with God and faith is the only way to grow in this relationship. We believe God allows evil in order to provide us with a choice. God can bring good even out of evil events and He promises victory over evil to those who choose Him.

Our Mission
To love our community into a relationship with Jesus Christ.