Our History
Radiant Church is a community of believers who are passionate about Jesus Christ and His Kingdom cause. We got our start in 1996, when Pastor Lee and Jane Cummings, along with their two children and a handful of friends were sent out from Resurrection Life Church in Grandville to plant a church in Southwest Michigan. From day one, it has been our vision to establish a church that is full of the life and values found in the book of Acts, while remaining relevant to 21st century culture. As a church, we are family friendly, exemplifying excellence in ministry to children and youth, yet maintaining a focus on world missions and spirit-filled worship. We are a church that does not “water it down,” but brings the message of the Bible to life, inspiring people to live all out for God. We remain God-centered while being people-oriented.
Our first service took place on September 8, 1996 at Gull Lake High School in a room called The Devil’s Den. Seventy-two people showed up that day to help us begin. The first message was entitled Lord of the Harvest, the first song sung was Lord I Lift Your Name on High, and the first check written from the official church checkbook was to John and Karla Vereecken, missionaries to Latin America. For the first 18 months the church continued to meet in the High School, setting up and tearing down the equipment each week and transporting it in a little red trailer that we named Tabernacle One. During this time we rented a small office space and meeting room, called the Ministry Center, for Wednesday night meetings. From this small space, we prayed every Saturday morning for God to lead us and direct us in the next steps we were to take.
In 1998 we purchased our current building (located in Richland, Michigan) from another church family that was relocating. With the added space, we continued to grow and people from every direction joined the Radiant Church family. We were, and still are, constantly amazed at the incredible people God sends our way and the lengths they are willing to drive to get here.
One of our dreams has always been to plant other life-giving churches with our unique DNA around the nation. So, in 2003 we assisted in planting a sister church. Pastor Clint and Mary Sprague served as Youth Pastors at Radiant Church for two years before being commissioned to start Life Church in Olathe, Kansas. Now a thriving church in its own right, we look forward to repeating this process many times in the future.
In 2005, we launched Chapter Two in response to our steady growth. The vision for this addition to our ministry facility included a new auditorium, offices, children’s space and a student ministry center. Construction began in September of 2005 and was completed within a year—the first service in the new facility, on September 10, 2006 marked our ten year anniversary as a church family.
We believe that with all of our hearts that we are living in a time when God is using local churches throughout the world in an unprecedented way to reach the masses. It is our original mandate and driving passion to be a church that embraces the presence and power of God so that this generation can know and encounter Him firsthand. We believe that we have only begun to see what God has in store for us, and we look to the future with great anticipation.