Who We Are

Northern Lakes Community Church is a new church serving the following communities:
Traverse City
Grawn
Interlochen
Lake Ann

Our mission statement:
Growing and sharing our love for Jesus Christ.

Our biblical theme:
I Corinthians 3:7-9: "So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes all things grow. All have one purpose....For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building."

Our vision:
In the first years of its life, Northern Lakes Community Church has grown into a thriving ministry, with a congregation that extends across generations, vibrant youth groups performing important mission work, and active small groups sharing the fellowship of Christ. A major goal in founding the church was to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the unchurched, and back to the formerly churched, in a casual atmosphere of genuine fellowship. In that we are succeeding. We are a young church, and as we grow, we seek to maintain that youthful passion.

In the next 10 years, we envision and plan that Northern Lakes Community Church will continue to grow, bringing the opportunity for Christian fellowship and extending the Healing Hand of God to more people and families through the church service itself and through a growing array of youth and adult ministries. We recognize that to do so will require a larger church facility and may necessitate more staff, and we embrace the challenge this presents by recalling our biblical theme of I Corinthians 3:7-9 and its admonishment that “we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

We will grow the church congregation and increase the good works we do in the community. We will also maintain the personal relationships that church members have with one another by expanding our collection of small groups and other opportunities for fellowship beyond the Benediction and outside the confines of the church. We will foster better communication among the church leadership and the congregation, and between our church and others in the community. We will cultivate teachers and role models, both within the church and in the community at large. And we will broaden our outreach and mission to the less fortunate in our local community and beyond.

Specifically, we seek to:

• Bring more families into our congregation, to grow our tradition of serving all generations and cultivate Christians from an early age, ensuring our long-term growth;
• Build upon the success of our youth program by growing it and establishing new participation opportunities focused on specific age ranges, which will develop leadership within the youth program and create future adult leaders, deacons and elders;
• Greatly expand our programming to attract and involve single adults and senior citizens;
• Educate members and visitors about what it means to be a Christian, to help more people reach new levels of faith and achieve greater understanding and development of their faith;
• Create a “buzz” in the community through our expanded activities, to more effectively spread the Word of our Lord and grow our church; and
• Welcome and embrace the need for the physical expansion of God’s House for community activity because we are achieving our mission of growing and sharing our love for Jesus Christ.

By doing these things, we will exponentially increase the connections among our congregation and strengthen our sense of community, well beyond the interaction in the worship service. We will develop people as our greatest resource as we unleash their talents and skills.

In this way, we will expand both the breadth and the depth of our ministry while growing and sharing our love for Jesus Christ.