About Standale Baptist
Our Heritage
In 1957 God moved in the hearts of Dr. Howard Keithley and members of Berean Baptist Church, on the north side of Grand Rapids, to plant a new church on the west side of the city as a response to the call of the Great Commission in Matthew 28. They understood the power of God to change lives through the Gospel. They first met in the old Zinser Elementary School until property was purchased on Lake Michigan Drive and the first phase of the building, the current fellowship hall, was erected. The first service in the new building was held on June 5, 1960. God continued to bless, growing the congregation, and the church was officially organized on March 20, 1963 with 65 charter members. As the congregation outgrew its space, God provided for two more additions, the first being dedicated on March 21, 1965 and the second, the current sanctuary, on November 3, 1968. Standale Baptist Church joined the General Association of Regular Baptist Churches of Michigan in 1966 and the National Association of Regular Baptist Churches in 1967. For over 65 years, Standale has continued to be a beacon of God’s grace, faithfully shining the truth of God’s Word.
Our Staff
Justin McCrimmon, Larry Morrissey, Kevin Sherd, Michael Faustrum, Charles Erickson
Lori began serving as our treasurer in 2002 and then also as our secretary in 2004. She creates the bulletins and financial reports and prints items for various ministries in the church. She works Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from 8 am to noon.
Ron has been serving the Lord as our custodian since 2011. He enjoys the opportunity to minister through regular cleaning and occasional maintenance. He dusts, mops, vacuums, waxes floors, and washes windows. Ron is usually at the church on Mondays and Saturdays.
What Do We Believe?
We believe in the complete inspiration of the Bible (the sixty-six books of our Bible) as originally
written by godly men of biblical times as they were directed by the Holy Spirit. These holy
writings were without error.
There is one true God, a limitless Spirit being who is perfect in holiness, justice, and love, existing eternally as a Godhead of three equal persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—each with distinct personalities and roles in creation, ministry, and redemption. He is worthy of our complete honor, allegiance, and love.
Jesus Christ, eternally existent as God the Son, created all things, lived a sinless life, died as a substitute for our sins, rose physically, and ascended to sit beside God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate. He will return imminently to rapture believers, followed by a seven-year Tribulation, after which He will establish His 1,000-year kingdom on earth.
The Holy Spirit, divine and equal with the Father and Son in the Godhead, convicts the world of sin, regenerates believers, and baptizes, seals, indwells, teaches, and bestows spiritual gifts on them. Certain supernatural gifts, like tongues, healings, and miracles, were primarily signs to confirm the apostles’ message before the New Testament’s completion.
Satan, a created spirit being who once led God’s angels, fell through pride and ambition, leading other angels to follow him, and now exists as the evil “prince of the power of the air” and “god of this age,” opposing God and Jesus Christ’s redemptive work. He accuses believers but will ultimately be defeated by Christ’s power and cast into the lake of fire prepared for him and his angels.
We believe that all men are sinners by nature as well as in their thoughts and actions. Because
of this, it was necessary for God to provide salvation totally by His grace through Christ’s death
on our behalf on the cross. Mankind as sinners can do nothing to earn salvation. Only those
who place their trust by faith in Christ as their personal Savior have eternal life. Having been
saved by the grace of God (through faith) we are kept by God, awaiting the completion of
salvation at the resurrection, when our bodies will be like Christ’s glorified body.
Jesus is preparing a place in heaven’s New Jerusalem for all who are saved, where they will spend eternity with Him. Those who die without accepting Christ as Savior are lost and will spend eternity in the Lake of Fire, created for the devil and his angels.
God, through Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, directly created all of existence, including all living things, with a special creation of Adam and Eve, declaring it good and ordaining that creatures reproduce according to their kind. He continues to sustain His entire creation.
We believe that marriage is the joining of one man and one woman and that sexual intimacy is
to be expressed only within the bonds of a Biblically defined marriage. This reflects God’s
timeless creation design and pictures Christ’s love for the church. Any other form of marriage or
sexual intimacy is immoral and a perversion of God’s gracious will.
Missions
Standale supports missionaries and agencies as part of our response to the Great Commission in Matthew 28.
Missionaries
- Hadessah Broeckert, BMM, Bibles International
- Deborah Cottle, BMM, Bibles International
- Marco and Lydia Garibaldi, BMM, EBI/Spanish Publications
- Joyce Henning, retired from CBM
- Steve and Sue Mayo, ABWE, Australia
- Dave and Jan Santos, BMM, Brazil
- Anna Sytsma, CEF, MI
Agencies
- Bringing Children Hope
- Continental Baptist Missions
- Gideons International
- Life Matters WorldwideLincoln Lake Baptist Youth Camp
- Our Daily Bread
- Michigan Association of Regular Baptist Churches
