Mission Statement

Encompassing the mandate of Great Commission found in Matthew 28:19-20,
our mission statement is:

“Where the lost are found, the found are discipled,
and the disciples serve.”

Everyone has the need to belong. God created families, in part, to meet this need. Orchard Ridge focuses on meeting the needs of those families as well as being a family for those that do not have one. Our focus group is primarily made of moms and dads of children, teens and college age youth. In many cases, both parents work. We also have divorced, widowed, never-married singles, and single parents in our fellowship. As our world continues to pull at the fabric of the family unit, we are committed to ministries that seek to bring together and strengthen the home and the relationships within the family. We will ask members for no more than three nights a week to be devoted to church activity/ministries. This is based on the premise that our priorities should be God first, Family second and Church third. If this is to be reflected in practices, the church should not get the majority of nights from our members. We will be committed to Biblical instruction in the areas that pertain to family, marriage and parent/child relationships.

We are committed to providing a home and hope for those who are hurting from broken relationships and the consequences of sin. Our mission is to be a family of faith in North Macomb by providing a healthy Christian environment that facilitates healing, nurture, and spiritual growth.

We Believe

In one God, the Creator of all things, who reveals Himself as Father, Son and Spirit.

In Jesus Christ, who is both fully God and fully man, who became like us to bring about our salvation.

In the Holy Spirit, who is active in the world today, bringing us to salvation.

The Bible is the Holy Word of God, giving us all we need to know about how to be saved and live a holy life.

We are all sinners by both nature and act and need God’s forgiveness and cleansing.

Jesus Christ died on the cross, and trusting in His death, burial and resurrection, we can be restored to a right relationship with God.

That God has enabled us to turn to Him from sin but that He has not forced us to do so.

Each person must repent, turn away from their sins, and trust Christ to forgive their sins.

When we turn from sin and trust in Christ, our sins are completely forgiven, and we are born anew, becoming part of the family of God.

In the new birth of believers, whereby, through the gracious work of God, the moral nature of the repentant believer is given a new spiritual life, capable of faith, love, and obedience.

In the Church, the community of faith, those who confess Jesus Christ as Lord, the covenant people of God made new in Christ. We believe in baptism and encourage people to be baptized as Christians.

In the Lord’s Supper as a means of God’s grace.

God can and does heal. We also believe God can work through medical science.

Jesus is coming again.

In the resurrection of the dead, that the bodies of the just and the unjust will be raised to life and united with their spirits in eternal life or death. We believe this personal choice is given to all people.

“Come grow with us” John 15:16

Core Values

1. We value discipleship that leads to a wholehearted commitment to Christ evidenced by heart and lifestyle holiness. We believe that all mankind is sinful from birth and that God the Father sent His only Son Jesus to save us from the eternal death that sin brings. This grace, extended to us, not only frees us from sin at the time of our physical death, but breaks the power of sin in this life as well. We believe that this is evidenced by, but not limited to, the giving of our time, talents and treasure to Kingdom building and advancement.

2. We value God’s Word: The Bible. We believe the Bible cover to cover and believe it to be without error, and completely relevant to the issues we face today. We believe the Apostle Paul’s conclusion in II Timothy 3:16-17 that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

3. We value prayer. We recognize that the church is His and if we are to build it His way we must speak with Him frequently. We believe in the POWER of prayer and recognize that for the Christian there are many things to do after we pray but nothing to do before we pray!

4. We value relationships. We believe God created us with a need for relationship — primarily our relationship with God and secondarily our relationship with one another. We recognize that sin kills both and that as a church we have a responsibility to help bring restoration and reconciliation in these relationships. (II Corinthians 5:11-21)

5. We value evangelism. We value our responsibility to seek the lost and present them with the hope of the Gospel.

6. We value worship. We seek to reclaim the fullness of the arts in worship recognizing that it was God who gave the arts to us. Our worship services will always facilitate bringing our gifts to the King. Our music, drama and teaching/preaching must always be relevant to the culture in which we live and the lost that we seek to reach. We also will emphasize that worship is a 24/7 lifestyle (Romans 12:1), not an hour of singing on a Sunday morning. Our worship services are meaningful only as expressions of what is taking place in our lives on a daily basis.

7. We value the Sacraments. Among these are communion, water baptism and marriage. Those in our fellowship will be encouraged, taught and led to honor and participate in the blessings that come from these sacraments.

Ministry Structure

Our desire is to have a flow chart that is simple, memorable, and relates to who we are. We have designed a concept based in part on Rick Warren’s five purposes of the New Testament church found in Acts 2:42-47, and in part on our name identity. God gave me this idea January 31, 2003 when I was in the hospital with our baby Brooke at Detroit’s Bon Secours Hospital. It is based on an apple paradigm. When an apple is cut in half horizontally, a cross section looks like what you see to the left. Our desire as a church fellowship is to produce “fruit that will last.” (John 15:16) The problem is, churches don’t produce over the long haul unless they reproduce themselves in the lives of others. If you think about an apple, people love eating the fruit of the apple, but typically throw the core away. The core is critical, however, if more apples are to be made! Just one of the many seeds in the core of a single apple can produce a tree that will yield thousands of apples over that tree’s lifetime. That seed needs to be planted and nurtured, however. It’s no different in churches. People love being fed, and eating the fruit. Getting to the core, or point of reproduction, isn’t as attractive, however.

Points to consider:

1) The skin of the apple is paper-thin and not a true indicator of the fruit inside. In fact, the skin has little nutritional value. Nevertheless, people do not want to bite into an apple that has marred/bruised/damaged skin. Our churches are like that. We need to be polished on the things we do. We need to apply a standard of excellence and quality in our people skills and print (brochures, flyers, emails, website, signage, etc.) or people will never take a bite. Especially in a church plant situation, where there are so few people to start. Guests (not visitors) will make a quick assessment of whether or not they want to associate themselves with our fellowship based on our ‘skin’. It won’t matter if we have good fruit to offer if our exterior isn’t polished and inviting because they will never take a bite!

2) The cross section of an apple reveals five sections or cavities that hold the seeds. These represent the five purposes of the New Testament church. They are Discipleship, Worship, Fellowship, Outreach/Evangelism, and Service/Ministry. Just as people bite into an apple at a random point, people will bite into our ministry at any one of the above five areas. If they like what they taste, they will continue to taste and partake of the other areas. The ultimate goal is to get people to eat their way to the core and then reproduce themselves in these ministry areas and the lives of others! I have bought into Rick Warren’s conclusion that church growth is not the primary objective. Church health is the primary objective. If we are healthy and balanced in the five purposes of the church, and keep our eyes on Jesus, it will be impossible not to grow!