Where we’ve come from

Servants’ began with twelve people gathering weekly for prayer, Bible study, and informal worship. The first meetings took place in homes. On January 20, 1980, the group began meeting in a vacant church building in the heart of the Grand Rapids Westside.

On January 21, 1981 Servants Community Church was officially organized by the North Grand Rapids Classis of the Reformed Church in America. Leaders were chosen. Assignments were accepted. Twenty three adults and nine children stood on an exciting new frontier.

From those earliest days Servant’s has existed for the sake of our Westown neighborhood. We are a church of and for our community that longs to make the hope we have experienced a little more present in our city and our world.

There have been a lot of changes over the years, both for Servant’s and Grand Rapid’s Westside, but some things never change. One of those things for Servant’s is the belief that Jesus’ call to love our neighbors starts in the neighborhoods we find ourselves in. First and foremost we long to see reconciliation, justice and peace in our own lives and in our community.

The tradition we’re a part of

Here at Servant’s we feel that God intends for his people to be in community. One of the ways we live into that is by being in relationship with a group of churches across the country called the Reformed Church in America (RCA). The word “Reformed” comes from the Protestant Reformation that swept across Europe in the 1500’s under the leadership of such Christians as Martin Luther and John Calvin. “Reformed” meant the same thing then as it does now, that God is much bigger than our understanding of God and life as a church means always re-forming our thinking and acting as our understanding of God grows and our cultural challenges shift.

The RCA got its start way back in 1628 when New York was still New Amsterdam. Over the centuries the RCA re-formed from a Dutch immigrant community into a denomination that is actively committed to it’s multi-racial and multi-cultural identity.

We in the RCA believe the Bible to be the Word of God and the final authority for faith and life. We believe in the historic Christian faith as confessed in the Apostles Creed. We believe that in the cross of Jesus God was, and is, reconciling all things to himself, and that we are called to partner in that reconciliation between God and people, people and people, and people to our world.