History & The Future of Sunrise
The sunrise on Sunday, October 19, 2003 was cast against a clear blue sky. Inside, underneath the spire of Hudsonville's Pinnacle Center, musicians sounded the first chords of preparation for worship. A little later, as the doors opened, old friends eagerly greeted new friends. At 10:00 am Sunrise Ministries, a brand new church began its first worship celebration.
Preparations for that first worship had taken place over several preceding months. Beginning in the summer of 2003, a group of about 30-40 people had started meeting at Alward School on Sunday evenings. Prayers and Bible study, led by Paul Erffmeyer, were followed by times for church planning and fellowship.
On August 3, 2003 an informal eight member steering committee—which later became a more formal seven member Board of Sunrise—accepted responsibility
for directing the ministry. The next summer, on June 6, 2004, there was a special worship to commission members of the Sunrise Board.
Dr. David Breen had been leading worship since the first celebration on October 19, 2003. On March 1, 2004 Pastor Dave was officially called to lead Sunrise Ministries as its Teaching Pastor. At that time there were 35 families that were Sunrise members.
Two years later in 2005, when Pastor Dave had surgery for carcinoid cancer, seminary student Tim Breen took a more active role in serving as a Sunrise pastor. After the Rev. Timothy Breen graduated from seminary in 2006, the congregation was pleased to call Pastor Tim as Minister for Proclamation and Tim's Uncle Dave became Minister for Transformation.
From the days of first dreams to the present time Sunrise has sought to define its ministry with a vision of reaching out to the lost, the lonely, the bruised and the broken. Sunrise worship is creative celebration, designed to communicate the "old, old story of Jesus and his love" in fresh ways. Sunrise people joyfully sing familiar words with new melodies and energizing rhythms.
Acceptance and encouragement in Christ and invitations to Christ are vitally important to us at Sunrise. We believe that when we draw closer to Christ we are consistently drawn closer to each other and to others, near and far, who need the Lord.
While there are a wide spectrum of ages among its nearly 100 families, Sunrise Ministries has been specially blessed by an exciting number of young families. Those who worship with us consistently offer comments on how many young families call Sunrise their church home. Over the last three to four years we have been able celebrate, almost every month, the birth of at least one new baby!
Sunrise, indeed, has a very bright future!
© 2009 Sunrise Ministries