Mission

Love God. Love People. Love the City.

That is our to-do list at MCC. This is why we are here.
We recognize this is easier said than done especially since we are a community of broken people who need grace every day.

Together, we focus on growing in three main ministry areas:

Worship

We have all kinds of words that express who we are seeking to become in worship. Some of the main ones are Hospitable, Gospel Centered, Prayerful, Biblical, Sacramental, Joyful. We are working to establish life giving worship practices that enrich and equip people each Sunday.

Prayer

Prayer isn’t all we do at MCC, but we want it to be the first thing we do, we want it to be our best practice. At MCC we believe healthy churches are praying churches. We believe that churches who reach others in love and with the love of Jesus are praying churches. We believe that churches that are filled over and over and over again with the Holy Spirit are praying churches.

People

Our focus is on reaching people and enfolding people. It’s a both/and thing for us at MCC. We won’t sleep nights if we cannot find ways to lovingly connect with and serve our neighbors. Nor will we rest if people are not finding ways to enter meaningful, soul nourishing relationships with one another. At MCC our goal is to become a true spiritual community that is always looking to widen the circle of our relationships.

Staff and Ministry Leaders

Anthony Vander Schaaf

Pastor of Teaching and Vision

Jim Boer

Associate Pastor of Community Life

Austin Phillips

Director of Discipleship

Monica Mulder

Office and Facilities Coordinator

Monroe Community Church is part of the Christian Reformed Church in North America

Our Beliefs

We believe in God the Father who created the world and governs all things: that He is our faithful Father. We believe God is actively and continually at work in us and around us.

We believe in God the Son who came to this earth as Jesus Christ, died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, and rose from the dead to give us new life.

We believe in God the Holy Spirit who lives in believers and continually nurtures us so that we may grow in Christ-likeness. The Spirit also empowers us so that we may be Jesus’ witnesses in the world.

We believe that through faith in Jesus Christ, we receive forgiveness for everything about us that separates us from a holy God. In that forgiveness, we will one day be raised from the dead, and share the joy of eternity spent with God.

These beliefs are summarized for us in the historic creeds and confessions of the Christian church. To learn more about these, click below:

I believe in God, the Father almighty,
creator of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
      who was conceived by the Holy Spirit
      and born of the virgin Mary.
      He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
      was crucified, died, and was buried;
      he descended to hell.
      The third day he rose again from the dead.
      He ascended to heaven
      and is seated at the right hand of God the Father almighty.
      From there he will come to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
      the holy catholic* church,
      the communion of saints,
      the forgiveness of sins,
      the resurrection of the body,
      and the life everlasting. Amen.

*that is, the true Christian church of all times and all places

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made; of the same essence as the Father. Through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven; he became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate; he suffered and was buried. The third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures. He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and to life in the world to come. Amen.

The Heidelberg Catechism, written in 1563, originated in one of the few pockets of Calvinistic faith in the Lutheran and Catholic territories of Germany. Conceived originally as a teaching instrument to promote religious unity in the Palatinate, the catechism soon became a guide for preaching as well. It is a remarkably warm-hearted and personalized confession of faith, eminently deserving of its popularity among Reformed churches to the present day.

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Christ, Culture, and Mission at Monroe Community Church

Statements and documents connected with our mission at MCC

In recent history, the church has mishandled the topic of sexuality from a variety of angles. The church’s witness has centered on what forms of sexual expression Scripture is against instead of the dignifying, freeing sexual expression Scripture advocates for. Jesus majored in the latter; the church has emphasized the former.

More personally, while the church has historically held to an understanding of sexuality distinct from the surrounding culture, the application of that belief in recent history has become alienating to those whose sexual expression does not line up with the church’s. The tragedy of that shift has been that many have been made to feel alienated by the Christian church because of sexual practice and/or sexual orientation.

At Monroe Community Church we want to engage with, and hold the tension of agreement and acceptance. In modern cultural rhetoric, agreement and acceptance are often used synonymously: “If you don’t agree with my ethical choices (belief), you don’t accept me (expression).” However, in Jesus, we observe the opposite phenomenon: Those who felt most accepted in his presence were those living in disagreement with his teaching. Therefore, as a church we are committed to becoming a community linked to Jesus in both agreement and acceptance.

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