Our Mission is to Ignite Authentic Life In Christ.

We are committed to the following core values that are central to our mission.

1. People Need the Lord

There exists within each of our hearts a God-shaped hole and nothing can fill that hole or satisfy that longing except God. Our hearts search restlessly until they find rest in God. We know and experience God the Father's love most fully in Jesus Christ, God's Son, through God's Holy Spirit. While none of the other core values are in order or importance, this one is. It comes first because it is the foundation and focus of all that we do. We are called to share Jesus with everyone (Matthew 28:19), and our church is always focused on the new guest among us who is exploring following Jesus too. While the work of changing hearts is ultimately God's work, we hope and look forward to growing both in number and maturity as people come to find their deepest needs met in knowing, loving, and serving the Lord.

2. We seek to create healthy community through biblical patterns of relating to one another.

The church is a community of people who seek together to follow the way of life that Jesus taught. This way of life is first and foremost about creating a community of people who are reconciling (being made right) with God and with one another (2 Corinthians 5:18-21, Matthew 18). The Bible is the story of God's work of reconciliation with all of creation, and our life together, while not always easy or fun, is most whole, most abundant, and most joyful, when we are living into that story by practicing biblical patterns of reconciliation or relating to one another. This includes honesty, humility, confession, forgiveness, mercy, and the like. We seek to not hold grudges against one another, but to proactively seek out one another to renew joyful friendship.

3. Being in a small group is essential to spiritual growth.

It's awfully hard to follow Jesus alone. We all need friends for the journey. We all need community with others who are encouraging, mentoring, and strengthening us (Hebrews 10:25). This can't happen just one hour a week on Sunday morning. We seek to be the kind of church where you can come as you are but not stay as you are. To grow in depth and maturity we must be seeking out spiritual friends throughout the week. This happens when organized small groups of new and old friends gather to study scripture or read spiritual books together. It happens when we seek out spiritual direction from someone who is further along the road than we are. It happens when we gather to pray for one another. Small groups happen in all kinds of formal and informal ways.

4. Our lives are to be directed by the Holy Spirit through Scripture, prayer and Christian community.

Gaining wisdom is a multifaceted journey that includes first and foremost guidance by God's Holy Spirit (Acts 1:5). God has not left us without practical tools to seek that guidance. Scripture is God's primary way of providing direction for our lives (Psalm 130:5), prayer helps us remain open to that direction, and Christian community (both immediate and the Christian community of those who have come before us) helps us test and discern all of these things (Acts 15:28). Sometimes this kind of direction doesn't come quickly. We seek to be a community who is willing to wait for the Spirit rather than to quickly vote and move forward. There are other H.A.B.I.T.S. which also help us stay attuned to the leading of God Spirit such as fasting, meditation, giving, and serving.

5. People are joyful when called to serve through their spiritual gifts and passions.

Each of us is called to serve the church, community and world. God's call is rarely static, and the discernment of it is more an art than a science. Some helpful tools for discerning a place of service are one's spiritual gifts and one's passions. Another helpful tool is whether serving brings the one serving and the ones being served joy. Sometimes we find that a deep joy comes when we serve in a place that was not easy or fun, although service is sustained over the long-haul when we find a convergence of giftedness, passion, and calling.

6. We share God's love in creative and excellent ways.

Our own creativity and excellence is a reflection of being made in the image of God, our creator. God's creativity shows up in God's plan of salvation for creation. When humanity sinned and fell away from God, God did not remain aloof in heaven, but did the unthinkable and came in the flesh of Jesus Christ to live among us (John 1:14). Jesus taught in creative and excellent ways using the symbols and objects of his day to help those who heard him understand and receive God's love for them. Following God's lead in Jesus, we seek to do the same thing today. We use the symbols and objects of our culture to share God's love in creative and excellent ways so that people "get it." While we strive for excellence, we are also willing to try new methods and are willing to experiment and even risk failure. We believe this kind of creativity in the long run produces excellence. In doing so we hope that some might come to respond back to God's love by embracing it and sharing it with others.

7. We sense an emerging core value around missions, but we don't yet have the words to describe it.

Our History

Sycamore Creek Church is a "daughter congregation" of Holt United Methodist Church. Pastor Barb Flory came to Holt in 1998 to serve as its associate pastor and to begin the two-year task of planning the new-church plant, assembling a launch team, and getting the word out to the community.

Our first worship service was on Nov. 12, 2000, at Lansing Christian School. Since that date, Sycamore Creek has grown in attendance, developed a thriving children's and youth ministry, and launched numerous small groups in which people come together to learn more about Christ, develop friendships, and grow in their faith.

On July 1, 2009 Barb Flory retired and Tom Arthur became our new pastor. We look forward to many new years in ministry together.

Sycamore Creek is a "come-as-you-are" church where you don't have to get dressed up for worship and where the music and message are contemporary, relevant to today, and designed for people's everyday lives. It is a congregation that is welcoming and inviting to all persons, and a place where worship is heartfelt, warm, and honors God from the heart of the people.