A Little Life History…

Life Church began in March of 1985 with just eleven adults and one little girl. Our vision was to become a church that reached out to hurt and hurting people with the power of God's love and forgiveness, His acceptance and consolation. We wanted a balanced church where our fundamental beliefs could meet up with charismatic joy! We believed that sort of church would be well received as people experienced it, but little did we realize...

Within weeks of getting started, we outgrew the home where we were meeting and rented some facilities in a retail center. Within a few months we acquired the first ten acres of our present twenty-acre site and began developing plans to build. Just after our second anniversary we dedicated the building which is now the church offices and chapel!

Our first new building was dedicated in June of 1987. Through the years we have prospered as a congregation in many ways. While we feel privileged and happy to have such a sterling record, we understand God's call to us is to continue ministering His life and blessings in ever-increasing ways. We recognize that the role of the church is not to be a depository of God's blessings, but a distribution point for them through many different types of ministry… and we try to foster as many of them as Father places in the hearts of His sons and daughters… It's that understanding that causes us to reach out to you and say... "Just come as you are — there’s a place for you … a place where you’ll be loved!"

This heart for the community led to continuing growth of Life Church. In 2000 we built a fellowship building (our current Dining Room) with the first of several full kitchens. As part of that project, we also built a large, covered sports pavilion.

It wasn't long before we outgrew our original worship sanctuary and youth facilities. The decision was made to enclose the sports pavilion for use as a new worship sanctuary (the Living Room), a cafe for fellowship, and three nurseries in 2003. We also added restroom facilities and a large youth building with full audio/visual services along with our second full kitchen. The previous sanctuary was converted for use in ministering to children from four years old through grade 6.

Soon, we began to run out of room again--this time for our children. In 2006, we built the new Life Kids building with three fully equipped stadium meeting rooms, two smaller classrooms, a video/game room, a dining area, and our third full kitchen. Out Str8-Up department (grades 5 & 6 at that time) was now housed in the old sanctuary.

At this time our Str8-Up kids began excitedly reaching out to their friends at school resulting in more and more children being dropped off by parents on Wednesday nights. Soon, we needed more room for them. So we added a new Str8-Up Building to the east side of the Life Kids Building in 2009. In 2010, the local school system revised their junior high to include grades 6-8. We also adjusted our departments so that Uturn included grades 9-12, Str8-Up includes grades 6-8, Life Kids includes ages 3 through grade 5.

In 2006, we began ministry to the Hispanic community under the leadership of Alex and Lisa Montealegre meeting at 4 pm on Sunday afternoons. In time, the Spanish service grew and was separated into its own church: La Vida Regional Cuadrangular. Though technically two different churches, we function together to reach the English and Spanish speaking people in our community--two expressions of one church.

Due to increased interest from local students, we began picking up children in high school and junior high directly from school on Wednesdays. That, along with the many kids being dropped off by parents, our Wednesday attendance began to rival the combined morning attendances on Sundays. We feed everyone on Wednesday nights, but we soon were unable to adequately seat the kids in the Life Kids Building for the meal. So in 2011 we added the Life Kids Diner to the north side of the Life Kids Building. We now regularly exceed 700 attendees on Wednesday nights.

Today, there are many people who call Life Church their home, and we are living out our early goals to touch our city with something special. With stirring music (our worship leader came to us from the Church of God in Christ), genuine caring (we place a high emphasis on developing "eternal" friendships), multiple voice instructional teaching (we use a "salad bowl" concept), captivating and informative children's ministries (everybody needs their own place), fun fellowships (we play as hard as we serve!), and dynamic outreach into the community (our co-opetition [rather than competition] with several other churches and concepts like our "Freemarkets" have made a definitive impact),God is building a place of strength and refuge out of a people called "Life."