The Vine on Gregory Lane
At 600 Gregory Lane in Fairfield, on the doorstep of Travis Air Force Base and a short drive from Suisun City, Vacaville, and Cordelia, a congregation gathers each Sunday morning around an open Bible and a pot of coffee. The sign out front reads The Vine Baptist Church. Inside, it is a family of ordinary people who would say they have been changed by the extraordinary grace of Jesus Christ, and who would rather walk a stretch of West Texas Street, set up a photo booth at the Tomato and Vine Festival, or pack food for a neighbor without housing than keep their Christianity to themselves.
What is unusual about this church is not its size or its program. It is the way everything is built around one thing. Every Sunday message is verse by verse through a book of the Bible. Every midweek gathering is meant to keep people in the Word together between Sundays. Every outreach, from the adopted street to the food boxes, starts with showing up. A midweek group leader describes the whole mission in one sentence: helping people know Jesus, grow in His Word, and faithfully follow Him.
What a First Sunday Looks Like
The doors open before 11:00 AM, and the first thing most people notice is coffee, donuts, and someone who has clearly been waiting to greet them. There is no dress code; jeans sit beside Sunday best in the same row, and nobody is keeping score. The hour runs a little over an hour once worship begins: singing, prayer, and then the sermon from Senior Pastor Amos Sikele.
The aim of the hour is Jesus, not the hour. Children head downstairs to Branches Kids during the service, students in middle and high school stay with the church family for worship and then meet as Alive Youth. Adults who arrive early say the unhurried welcome is what sets the tone: nobody is rushing you to a seat, and nobody is watching how long you took.
Parking is free on site, and on a normal Sunday there is still a space when you arrive. If you would rather let the church know you are coming first, the plan-a-visit form is available and the team will look for you on the way in. First-time questions are answered plainly: come whenever you are comfortable, come as you are, and your kids will be safe, known, and pointed to Jesus while you worship.
The Preaching: Books of the Bible, One Verse at a Time
Walk through the message archive and a pattern emerges. Pastor Amos preaches through books of the Bible passage by passage rather than assembling a topic and finding verses to support it. In 2026 the church has worked through Ephesians end to end and is now in a series called Devoted, on what the Bible actually says about solitude, community, the armor of God, marriage, work, and the walls we build between people.
Each message is recorded and posted to the YouTube channel, and each one has a written recap with the passage, an outline of the sermon, and practical application. Discussion guides and prayer guides for many series are available for free; you ask for one and the church emails it to you. Visitors often listen to a Sunday before they come in person, and the church welcomes that: it is a better use of a Sunday than guessing.
The same pastor who preaches at 600 Gregory Lane is the one who sends the same teaching into living rooms across Fairfield, Vacaville, Suisun City, and Dixon every week. The Sunday message is the same wherever you hear it.
Branches Kids
Branches Kids is the children's ministry, and it runs twice each week: Sunday mornings during the service and Wednesday evenings alongside the adult Abide Groups. From nursery through elementary, kids experience Bible stories, age-appropriate worship, games, and friendships in a bright and supervised space. The church's own description is simple: every gathering is packed with things kids love and truth they will carry for life.
The staff is trained and the check-in is secure, so parents can settle in to worship knowing exactly where their children are. The name comes from John 15, where Jesus says He is the vine and His followers are the branches. The aim is the same as the rest of the church, just pitched at the right height: to lay a strong biblical foundation that lasts a lifetime.
One of the things the church highlights is that military families who arrive at Travis on orders are folded in quickly. There is a spot for a child the first Sunday they walk through the door, and the same adults face them on Wednesday. For a kid who did not choose the move, that consistency matters more than almost anything else the church offers.
Alive Youth
Alive Youth is for middle and high school students. They worship alongside the church family on Sunday mornings and own Wednesday nights on their own, with a full evening of relevant biblical teaching, worship, games, and time to build real friendships. The teaching is anchored in the same books-of-the-Bible pattern the adults hear, and the team describes its goal as helping students build a faith that is rooted in God's Word and ready for everyday life.
Caring mentors walk with students one on one. There is room for the student who has been in church forever and the student who wandered in with a friend. Most weeks include dinner or snacks, plenty of energy, and a teaching time designed to meet teenagers where they are. The Verse the ministry points to is 1 Timothy 4:12: let no one despise your youth, but be an example of the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.
Young Adults: Table Nights and Thrive Nights
The young adult ministry is built around two intentional rhythms, both designed for people in their late teens through late twenties. Table Nights meet every Monday and follow a four-week rotation. The first Monday of the month is a Home Bible Study, gathering at the pastor's home for dinner and a verse-by-verse study through Scripture. The second Monday is Church Night at the building, with worship, potluck, games, and teaching. The third Monday is an Activity Night: pickleball, bowling, a hike, something that builds friendship outside a Bible study table. The fourth Monday is Hospitality Night, when a church family opens their home for an evening of stories and shared life.
Thrive Nights happen every few months and look different on purpose. They begin with a shared dinner at 600 Gregory Lane and then move into extended worship, prayer, and biblical teaching designed to slow a busy life down for an evening. The point is to step out of the normal pace, seek the Lord together, and remember that the abundant life Jesus offers is not found in a fuller calendar.
The verse the ministry has chosen for itself is John 10:10: I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. The practice underneath it is the table, because that is where the early church did its life.
Abide Groups: The Midweek Heart of the Church
Wedneysday nights at 6:30 PM are when the smaller circles happen. Adult Abide Groups meet to open God's Word, pray together, encourage one another, and walk through life with gospel-centered friendships. Groups meet at the church building and across the area, and they pull from the same preaching the church heard on Sunday, which means a verse preached in the morning can be discussed around a table at night.
The church's own language for Abide Groups borrows directly from John 15: abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can you, except you abide in me. The practical shape is exactly what the verse says: a small room, a Bible, prayer, and people who actually know what is going on in each other's lives.
Branches Kids and Alive Youth run the same Wednesday night, so the midweek gathering is one trip for a whole family. From Suisun City, that two-mile drive makes Wednesday just as reachable as Sunday. From further out, the church is honest that midweek is more of an ask, and encourages families to build their week around Sunday first.
A Church Built for Travis Air Force Base Families
Travis Air Force Base sits about six miles from the church, and base families have been part of this congregation for as long as anyone there can remember. The church has built its life around the rhythm of orders: people arrive without family within a thousand miles and leave before they have finished unpacking. The result is a culture where belonging is quick rather than earned.
You do not have to be a member to sit in an Abide Group, sign your kids into Branches Kids, or ask someone to pray with you. If you would like one family to know your name before your first Sunday, the visit form takes care of the introduction. During a deployment, an Abide Group becomes the small circle that already knows the dates and stops asking you to re-explain them. When the next set of orders comes, the church helps you find a church where you are going rather than acting wounded about it.
The Branches Kids room and the Alive Youth room are designed with this in mind. The same faces, the same leaders, the same songs on Wednesday that were there on Sunday. For a twelve-year-old who did not choose the move, that consistency is the most practical ministry the church offers.
Outreach: West Texas Street, Food, and Trunk or Treat
What happens outside the building is what the church points to most. Four ongoing commitments make up the visible life of the church beyond Sunday.
The first is an adopted street. The Vine has adopted West Texas Street through the City of Fairfield Adopt-A-Street program. Volunteers walk the stretch clearing litter and debris, and report back to the city on signs and fencing. The city supplies grabbers, bags, gloves, and vests; the church supplies the people. Adopting groups commit to at least six cleanups a year, and a sign marks the stretch naming the group that looks after it.
The second is food for neighbors without housing. Volunteers pack food boxes and bags at the church and hand them out to neighbors who are unhoused in Fairfield and Suisun City. Some are given out from the building; others are carried to where people already are. There is no program to qualify for and no questions to answer first. Someone is hungry, we have food, and the two facts belong together.
The third is the Tomato and Vine Festival. Each August the City of Fairfield closes downtown for the festival, and the church sets up a free photo booth and an open invitation to pray. Families walk away with a picture from their day; anyone who wants prayer has somewhere to go.
The fourth is Trunk or Treat. Every fall the Gregory Lane parking lot fills with decorated trunks, candy, bounce houses, and a free photo booth. It is one of the biggest nights of the year and one of the easiest to bring a neighbor to. Everything is free; nothing is sold.
What The Vine Believes
The statement of faith is short enough to read in one sitting and theologically Baptist in the way it is laid out. The Vine holds to the historic Baptist faith and considers itself a Bible-based church that believes the Bible is God's inspired, inerrant, and trustworthy Word.
The church confesses one God who exists eternally as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man, whose perfect life, sacrificial death, and victorious resurrection accomplished everything necessary for salvation; and the Holy Spirit who indwells every believer, empowers understanding of Scripture, and produces the fruit of Christlike character. Salvation is the gracious gift of God, received through faith alone in Jesus Christ alone, and baptism by immersion is taught as the first step of obedience after salvation, a public identification with the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus.
The Lord's Supper is observed as a sacred ordinance. The church is taught as God's family, called together to worship Christ, encourage one another, and make disciples, with the local congregation as the primary place where Christians are formed by the Word, equipped to serve, and sent into the world. Hospitality rounds out the list: welcoming others into homes, around tables, and into the life of the church is treated as a natural expression of the gospel.
What is distinctive here is not the doctrines themselves but how directly the preaching and the ministries are built on them. Verse-by-verse exposition assumes the inerrancy of Scripture. Branches Kids and Alive Youth assume that families belong together in the work of formation. The food boxes and the adopted street assume that the church exists for its neighbors, not the other way around.
The Team
Senior Pastor Amos Sikele preaches each Sunday and teaches the young adult Home Bible Study. He and his wife Jessica are raising their two daughters, Emma and Elsie, and have made Fairfield their home.
Four deacons serve the congregation: Pete Mullings, Ralph Lucas, Lou Cabral, and Chad Boyd. Jonah Faustino directs worship. Alex Coleman serves as trustee and Chrissy Vanderbogart as treasurer. Jonquin Ortiz coordinates the events calendar.
Each leader is listed with a verse, from 1 Peter 5: feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind; neither as being lords over God's heritage, but being examples to the flock.
Next Steps, Giving, and the Nonprofit Behind the Name
Three classic next steps are laid out: baptism, membership, and serving. Baptism is taught as a public declaration of faith after salvation; membership as a commitment to a particular church family; serving as putting the gifts God has given into practice. The Serve 101 path helps a newcomer find where their strengths fit, whether that is teaching, hospitality, prayer, mercy, encouragement, or something less visible.
Giving is available online through Church Center, in person by dropping a completed envelope in the offering box at the back of the auditorium or at the information desk, or by mail to the church address. The Vine Church app is the fastest way to manage giving and stay connected with everything happening at the church.
Three names refer to the same single congregation. The Vine is the ministry name used in worship and in church communications. The Vine Baptist Church is the registered doing-business-as name, filed with Solano County. Calvary Baptist Church of Fairfield-Suisun is the legal name on file with the IRS, the name on every contribution statement, and the entity that has served this community from 600 Gregory Lane since long before the name changed. It is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit religious organization, EIN 23-7295472, and every gift is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law.
The Vine gathers Sundays at 11:00 AM at 600 Gregory Lane in Fairfield, with midweek groups on Wednesdays at 6:30 PM and a young adult ministry that fills the Mondays in between. A free parking lot, coffee before the service, kids checked in downstairs, and a sermon worked straight through a book of the Bible. Come as you are.