Our STORy
Making christ famous to everyone, everywhere, every day.
2013-2014 | harvest spring lake
Late in 2013, Harvest Bible Chapel Spring Lake started looking for an opportunity to plant a church. In August 2014, their staff was approached by the elders of Crosswinds Fellowship to discuss transitioning Crosswinds to a Harvest Bible Chapel. This transition was approved by the elders of both churches, and Pastor Brian Bement was approached about the lead pastor role. Pastor Brian accepted, and a core group began to form and meet together that December.
april 2015 | harvest North muskegon
The following Easter Sunday, April 5, 2015, Harvest Bible Chapel North Muskegon officially launched. With overwhelming support from Harvest Spring Lake, over 650 people attended the launch service!
August 2016 | Elders installed
A little over a year later in August of 2016, we installed our first local elder team, the final step in becoming our own autonomous church body.
fall 2017 | great commission collective
Believing that partnership in Great Commission work is an essential value in our context and for the accomplishment of mission, Harvest North North Muskegon joined the newly formed Great Commission Collective in 2017. The mission of GC Collective is “to glorify God by planting, strengthening and multiplying Great Commission churches around the world.” As an international family of churches, the Collective is committed to helping churches become worshiping and sending churches who value the distinctives of fervent prayer, bold expository preaching, passionate worship, purposeful disciple-making, courageous evangelism and strategic church planting. Since its launch in August 2017, the GC Collective has grown to a partnership of over 120 churches worldwide.
September 2019 | christ church
From 2017 to early 2019, Harvest Bible Chapel Chicago went through a number of difficult transitions in their leadership that revealed multiple issues in the way their church was led. Given their church’s influence, our shared name started to create confusion. This confusion compelled our elders to change the name of our church. This process of changing our name gave us an opportunity to clarify our church’s unique identity and purpose. Since our church launched in 2015, God has been writing a unique story through His work in our church. And we believe the next chapter of our story is filled with opportunity and continued Gospel ministry as we fulfill our mission. Choosing a new name for our church allowed us to avoid confusion and ultimately be identified by our own character, values, and impact. So on September 8, 2019, we announced the new name of our church . . . Christ Church.
Our new name was chosen with great intentionality. We wanted our new name to clarify both our mission and our message.
Church
Jesus said,“I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” — Matthew 16:8
The original Greek word for church is “ekklesia,” meaning “to call out of”. The church is the gathering of those called out by God. We are called out with a purpose and a mission: to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission. The church is made up of disciples following Christ who are going into the world to make disciples. We are on a mission individually as disciples and together as the church.
Christ
For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. — 1 Corinthians 2:2
We landed on Christ because we wanted our church, in its name, to highlight the only name we want people to know: Christ. We want to know nothing except Christ and Him crucified. He is the cornerstone. We are baptized into His name. The Gospel is His story. We are called to live by faith and grace, in Christ, as a new creation. No other name is higher. As a church, we are rallying together to make Christ famous to everyone, everywhere, everyday.
Our Symbol
At the center of our symbol are the first two letters of Christ in Greek, the Chi (X) and the Rho (P). This symbol has represented the name of Christ for centuries and represents our commitment to keep Christ at the center of our lives and involved in everything we do. This is our identity: Looking back to what Christ has done and pressing forward into what Christ continues to do.
Today, Jesus is making good His promise in Matthew 16:18: “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” We have had front row seats to watch as He has built His church. And we believe He is just getting started.