Setting foot inside this rapidly-expanding church typically means entering buildings that are either new with sleek, modern lines or converted storefronts, part of a network of more than a dozen locations, most in Connecticut.
But Vox Church‘s latest location in downtown Hartford is like none other: a historic, Georgian Revival edifice perched on a knoll near the State Capitol and The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts since the late 1920s.
Vox — taken from the Latin word for “voice” — just completed a $4 million renovation of the former Second Church of Christ, Scientist on Lafayette Street, a permanent home for the Branford-based nondenominational Christian church in Hartford, a city where it has been active for a nearly a decade.
“It is different,” Jeremiah Johnson, pastor for the Hartford campus, said, during a recent tour of the renovations. “So, it is very unique. We want to use this space to not only have people come on Sundays to worship Jesus and grow in community and to become known, but also as a house to serve the city and just really be a beacon of hope for people.”
Johnson said Vox also sees the building, near the corner with Capitol Avenue, as an anchor location for the church in central Connecticut.
Vox Church Hartford Campus Pastor Jeremiah Johnson talks about the worship space at the church’s new Hartford campus on Lafayette Street. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
The renovation of the long-vacant and once-deteriorating brick structure with its distinctive, massive stone columns and pediment at the entrance comes at a welcome time. A draft report on a study by a neighborhood, nonprofit group, which will lay out a vision for revitalizing the Washington Street corridor, where the church is located, is due out by the end of this month.
The corridor — stretches roughly a mile from the Capitol south, past state courthouses and two hospitals to the Learning Corridor, the educational complex near Trinity College — is seen as critical to Hartford’s future. In 2020, the area was included among the ten projects that could transform Hartford by 2035, the city’s 400th anniversary. The corridor, according to the city’s plan, would be grounded in a “South End Health and Innovation District.”
In addition to the Vox renovation, there has been other progress in recent years.
A view of Washington Street corridor in Hartford. A new study is expected this month on how the thoroughfare should be revitalized. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
Connecticut Children’s recently completed a major, $326 million clinical tower expansion and neighboring Hartford Hospital has plans to invest $1 billion in its neighboring flagship campus over a decade. Hartford Hospital is now constructing a new parking garage and conference center.
But Washington Street is still beset by vacant buildings, standing in sharp contrast to the shiny, gold-leafed Capitol dome. The closing of a Walgreens pharmacy at the prominent corner at Park Street last year added to the barren landscape.
The largely publicly-funded $100,000 study by the neighborhood group, Southside Institutions Neighborhood Alliance, also will place an emphasis on whether a hotel or other lodgings are feasible, given Trinity College being nearby and the growth of the hospitals. A shortage of hotel rooms has emerged citywide in the aftermath of the pandemic.
Later this year, another piece of the study will evaluate ways to ease the difficulty for pedestrians navigating Washington Street.
Vox Church’s Hartford Campus, on Lafayette Street in the former Second Church of Christ Scientist, built in the 1920s. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
The study isn’t expected to propose new uses for specific structures, according to SINA. But in seeking consultants for the study, a list of vacant buildings was outlined, including the historic Samuel N. Kellogg House later used a funeral home and now owned by Hartford Hospital; and the Washington Diner, privately-owned and vacant for more than two decades.
“There’s no reason for Washington Street to be a ghost town,” Logan Singerman, SINA’s executive director, said. “It can be a vibrant corridor that brings people together.”
‘We prayed over it’
Vox Church was founded in 2011 in New Haven near Yale University. The Christian church expanded to Hartford in 2016, its Sunday services held at Front Street — first at a former movie theater and for the majority of the time at the Infinity Hall music and entertainment venue.
But Johnson, pastor in Hartford for the past five years, said the church building on Lafayette Street had long been on church’s radar.
A renovation of a 1920s church building by Vox Church for its new Hartford campus preserved architectural details such as ornamental plaster ceiling motives.(Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
“Even before we purchased the building or had any talks with the state, we knew this building was here,” Johnson said. “There were times when we prayed over it, like ‘God if this would ever be something you have for us, Lord, let us walk into it.”
During the former administration of the late Gov. M. Jodi Rell, the state purchased the property for $2.3 million in 2007 from a Christian Science congregation that had dwindled in size.
The state had intended to use it for archival storage for the adjacent Connecticut State Library and rehearsal space for the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Plans and funding never materialized and, apart from serving as an emergency homeless shelter in 2009, the building remained vacant.
The state attempted to sell the property twice. Vox Church’s offer of $750,000 was above the appraised value in 2024 of between $550,000 and $630,000, according to state officials at the time.
The worship space at Vox Church’s Hartford campus includes historic, circular-headed windows. Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
The renovations unfolded in the months following the church’s purchase of the property at 129 Lafayette St. in June, 2024. Church officials said the building was purchased outright by Vox and the renovations were funded with bank financing. There were no public grants.
Across its 13 locations, weekly attendance at Vox typically ranges between 4,000 and 5,000, church officials said.
At its first services on Lafayette Street on Jan. 11, the church drew 600 attendees, Johnson said.
According to the church’s 2024 annual report, posted on its website, total revenues more than doubled between 2018 and 2024, jumping from $4.75 million to nearly $11 million, In 2024, the report showed, 75% of revenue was drawn from weekly donations.
Roots, sprouts and seedlings
The challenge in renovating the space, Johnson said, was to preserve architectural details — dating to its completion in 1929 — but also bring a more modern look for a church that counts 60% of those who attend between the ages of 18 and 29 across all its 13 locations, including two in Massachusetts.
A stack of New International Version Bibles inside the worship space at Vox Church’s new Hartford campus on Lafayette Street. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
That statistic heartens the church because it shows a strong base of younger people attending church, Johnson said.
The services are so spirited musically that earplugs and noise-canceling headphones are made available at the entrance to the massive worship space, although the church says the volume falls within the safe decibel range.
On each side of the worship space’s raised stage — where a keyboard and drum set are visible during a mid-week tour — there are video screens that can display music lyrics. Sermons are streamed on a huge, dropdown screen above the center of stage, delivered by the church’s lead pastor and founder Justin Kendrick.
Above, on the ceiling, original ornamental plaster octagonal and square plaster motives — joined together by plaster stems — now are interspersed with modern acoustic sound panels. On the floor, new cork tiles — the same material used in the tiles that were replaced — have a lustrous shine.
The foyer at the new Hartford campus of Vox Church has a barrel ceiling with octagonal coffers. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
Light streams into the space through original, soaring, circular-headed windows made of cathedral glass with colorful borders of leaded glass. The windows, Johnson said, were made more energy-efficient with a special sealant.
The expansive 25,000-square-foot structure has a lower level devoted to a kids ministry where children ages 6 months to sixth grade. The children learn about the Bible at age-appropriate levels with designations such as “roots,” “sprouts,” and “seedlings” helping them to grow in their faith, Johnson said.
Welcoming is a cornerstone of the church, Johnson, said with volunteers stationed in the foyer and elsewhere, greeting those attending either the 9 a.m. or 11 a.m. services.
“Community is really important for us,” Johnson said. “When people come through our doors on a Sunday morning, I really want people to feel like they have a sense of belonging, that they feel seen, that they feel heard, that they feel love,”
Vox Church Hartford Campus Pastor Jeremiah Johnson shows one of the classrooms at the church’s Hartford campus on Lafayette Street. (Aaron Flaum/Hartford Courant)
Johnson said: “That when someone says, ‘Hey, how are you? How’s your day been going? Could I get you some coffee?’ Even ordinary things like that, God will use to prepare someone’s heart for what they are going to experience on a Sunday morning.”
Johnson said he experienced the embrace of the community as a transplant from his native Alabama. A recent college graduate with a degree in journalism and communication, Johnson relocated to the Hartford area in 2016 to take a behind-the-camera job at sports network ESPN. But as the son of a Christian pastor, he also quickly found Vox, which had just expanded to Hartford.
“I knew I needed to find a church home if I was ever going to get rooted in New England and establish my life here for my family as well,” Johnson said.
Johnson said he became increasingly involved in the church and, after four years at ESPN, left to lead the Vox’s Hartford campus as pastor. Now, Johnson will oversee a new phase in the church’s presence in Hartford including community outreaches focused on homelessness and transitional living, food insecurity and partnerships with schools in the city.
“A big part of why we are in cities like Hartford is that we want to serve and we want to be part of making a difference,” Johnson said. “We want to be a part of seeing positive change. I’m really looking forward to what God does here at Lafayette.”
Kenneth R. Gosselin can be reached at kgosselin@courant.com.
