A South Jersey church wanted to open a new branch. Pastors chose an empty Sears.
True North Church's new Vineland location opened to the public earlier this month in a vacant Sears, Roebuck, and Co. store on Landis Avenue.
A new church has opened in Cumberland County, nearly a year after the South Jersey congregation purchased a vacant Sears, Roebuck & Co. department store.
True North Church, a nondenominational Christian church founded two decades ago, purchased the nearly 70,000-square-foot retail building in 2024 for $2.4 million from the retailer that owns Sears. The store closed in 2017 after more than 60 years in operation, along with 65 other Sears and Kmart stores. Sears, the onetime American retail giant, filed for bankruptcy in 2018, and only five stores remain, none of which exist in New Jersey or Pennsylvania.
The opening of the church is part of True North’s effort to expand its footprint beyond Mullica Hill, Gloucester County, where it is based. The new church building, at the intersection of Landis Avenue and Route 47 in Vineland, opened for its first service on Oct. 4.
“We’re definitely passionate about South Jersey,” said Jesse Eisenhart, True North’s lead pastor. “We definitely feel like God has called us to this region. If it’s a city in South Jersey, it’s not off the radar.”
The new church seats about 950 people, with 40,000 square feet of the old Sears retrofitted for church purposes, Eisenhart said.
As more traditional, mainstream churches have struggled in recent years with aging congregations and membership retention, nondenominational churches are on the rise. In 2010, a census by Hartford Institute for Religion Research identified 35,000 independent and nondenominational churches across the U.S., and by 2020, the same census found 60,000 churches.
Eisenhart said getting the building up to speed was “a multimillion-dollar investment” but declined to share the exact price tag. In a report on the church’s website, True North reported spending more than $5.1 million in 2025, with the church’s revenue growing 7% since 2024.
As a religious entity, True North doesn’t have to file public 990 tax reports with the IRS.
While the bones of the old Sears were in good condition, contractors had to deal with asbestos, along with redoing the roof and the parking lot’s storm drainage system. Construction took two years.
“This was by no means an easy conversion. The building had sat vacant for years, and its condition, combined with decades of additions and modifications, presented significant challenges and unforeseen conditions throughout construction,” said Andrew Fabbri, vice president of Fabbri Builders in Vineland.
Equip Studio, a South Carolina-based architectural firm, designed the church. The firm also designed True North’s building in Mullica Hill and its former space in Haddon Township.
Eisenhart said True North didn’t choose Vineland, a city of nearly 63,000 people, at random.
Hundreds of Vineland residents attend services at True North’s Mullica Hill location, which overflows every weekend, said Eisenhart and another pastor, Josh Sarracino. Thousands gather in person and over the church’s livestreamed services, and space has been a big issue, Eisenhart said.
Until the church revamped the Sears store, Vineland residents had been gathering for 18 months at Lakeside Middle School to worship with True North.
Many congregants remember spending time at the old Sears, buying their wedding dresses and lawn mowers there.
“So many people have stories and memories from that building as small children: ‘I was a manager there. It was my dad’s place of employment. It was the place I had my first job... That was the first time I ever got fired from a job,’” Eisenhart said.
True North isn’t new to expansion. The church outgrew its Haddon Township spot, which it was gifted in 2015 from the Grace Baptist Church for only $1, after only seven years there. It sold the building for $850,000 and started using Collingswood Middle School for services, Sarracino said.
The church no longer has a footprint in Camden County.
“When COVID hit, we had recently built the Mullica Hill facility, and when we were allowed to meet again, we just had services there [instead],” Sarracino said.
In recent years, True North has developed “correctional campuses” at SCI Chester and Salem County correctional facility, where the church offers worship services to more than 100 inmates.
The church is also planning a 35,000-square-foot addition to its Mullica Hill location, including a new auditorium with more seats and space for their youth program.
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