A PORTRAIT OF SONLIGHT COMMUNITY CRC

Sonlight Community CRC is a 200 family congregation located in Lynden, WA. It was formed 27 years ago within a community that had seven CRCs and two Reformed churches because of a perceived need for less formal but genuine worship and a desire to reach out to the surrounding community with the healing message of the gospel. We intended to be permanently small so that we could minister effectively to one another.

We grew from several families that met in the foyer of the local Christian high school, to the chapel of that high school, and then to a church building we constructed in 1995. We have had one pastor, Rev. Ken Koeman, for 26 years. He remains dearly loved by this congregation and we celebrate his subsequent fulfilling ministry at Bellevue, WA CRC.

As we grew in numbers, we gained much from the fellowship of each additional believer, but we lost the intimacy that we enjoyed when we were small. We may have lost some of our focus on community ministry, evangelism and genuine worship.

During the past several years, as our numbers declined, we entered a period of "healthy restlessness". We want to rediscover our first love-the care for one another that we enjoyed as a small church; the informal, participatory, genuine worship services; and the burden for the lost and hurting around us.
As part of that, we recently re-articulated our mission as being the Great Commandment-to love God above all and our neighbor as ourselves. We try to live that out through our worship and by relating to one another and to the world around us. In our worship services, there is a renewed emphasis on participation, Biblical expository preaching and on testimonies, with as much informality as our size permits. Our focus is on God and His Word. For example, in 2007 we are reading the One Year Bible together.

We recognize that we cannot love one another unless we know one another. With two morning worship services and the numbers at each, it is easy to remain convenient acquaintances. To know one another better, we have renewed our emphasis on small groups, with a part time "Networker" to energize those efforts. Last year as a church our small groups studied "40 days of Community" and "40 days of prayer". This year, we hope to make the small groups a permanent part of our church DNA. The One Year Bible will provide focus for much of the year for our small groups.

We include two documents that may further inform on who we are and how we hope to serve our God: our mission statement and the results of a 2005 congregational survey.