Who We Are
Our Story and Vision
Our early days in 2019
We began meeting in 2018 in each other’s homes as we shared meals weekly and prayed together. As a parish in formation, we worshiped together under the care of All Saints Anglican in Holland, MI from 2019 to 2020. After ordinations and affirmation from the Anglican Diocese of the Great Lakes, Christ Church officially planted as a "mission" of the Diocese in January 2021. Together we seek to live out the gospel through word and sacrament, liturgy, the rhythms of our historical Christian calendar, and service.
Our backgrounds were varied—some came from Orthodox traditions, while others come from Evangelical, Charismatic or Catholic spaces. Through our shared commitment to Anglican spirituality, we find joy in worshipping together and living together as we focus on “in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity,” as stated by St. Augustine of Hippo.
Our vision is to cooperate with the Kingdom of God in Grand Rapids through being a family of disciples who receive, know, and extend the love of Christ.
Leadership
Fr. Kris Rolls
Rector
Fr. Kris is a native "Grand Rapidian". He enjoys good food, drink, and conversation. He is a husband to Emily and father to Levi and Luke. During his seminary studies and a brief stint overseas in Palestine, he felt drawn to ancient streams of Christian worship and spirituality. He fell in love with the beauty of the Book of Common Prayer and captured a vision for living Christianly within the rhythm of the Church Calendar. He loves to read, backpack, and appreciates the sanctification wrought by his allegiance to the futility of the Detroit Lions.
Fr. Daniel Day
Assisting Clergy
Daniel is married to his high school sweetheart and dad to three. He enjoys pressing apple cider, baking sourdough, and drinking a good cup of coffee with friends. Daniel was introduced to Anglicanism through the Anglican Church of Rwanda, and over time grew to appreciate this liturgical expression of Christianity. He’s the author of What’s Next: Your Dream Job, God’s Call and a Life That Sets You Free, and a podcaster at Our Daily Bread Ministries. He also holds a Master’s Degree from Fuller Theological Seminary.
Jess Roberts
Children's Formation Director
Jess has worked in early childhood education and children's discipleship for almost two decades. Her travels have taken her from California to Hawaii (where she met her husband, Ryan) to Washington State, back to California and finally Michigan. Raising her three kids as 'Michiganders' has been a true joy! Jess enjoys working in their food garden, volunteering at her children's outdoor themed school, baking in the kitchen, and getting out for a hike with her binoculars for birdwatching.
Robert Nordling
Music Coordinator
Robert Nordling loves making music in many genres and forms - from Music and Worship in Presbyterian and Anglican churches, to Music faculty at Calvin University and Trinity International University, to conducting orchestras around the world.
His interests include Arthurian literature, poetry, Indian food, Gregorian chant, sci-fi, furniture-making, Welsh Terriers, Tom Waits, Gustav Mahler, his 3 grand children, Cherith Nordling, everything Bach ever wrote and espresso coffee.
Kyle Quisenberry
Parish Administrator
Kyle studied pastoral ministry and served on-staff at a church for seven years. Over time, Kyle felt drawn to spiritual disciplines as part of his discipleship to Jesus, which eventually led him to more traditional liturgical churches and Anglicanism.
Kyle loves to read, gravitating especially to theology and hearty fiction. If you ever want to run into him, just frequent a coffee shop (or Baker Book House).
Additional Resources
Elizabeth Forshee
Spiritual Director
Elizabeth Forshee is a CCA member and lay minister. Though not on staff, she is a trained spiritual director whose services are available to those inside and outside the parish interested in attending more deeply to their relationship with God through the practice of spiritual direction. Elizabeth has several years of ministry experience, including serving cross-culturally in Asia. She would love to make herself more available to the parish and others seeking a director, so if you’d be interested in learning more about spiritual direction or meeting with Elizabeth for a preliminary session please visit her website at www.alongthewanderingway.com or contact her.
Ancient Traditions & Modern Expression
Our hope to see God redeem us, our neighbors and our city with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We live out this hope within a particular tradition—the Anglican Communion. The Anglican Communion is a diverse family encompasses over 80 million people globally. We are the third largest Christian denomination in the world. We hope to live the best practices of the historic church into the present in a new and fresh way.
Anglican Christianity is unified by its center, not by its boundaries. We believe that the "law of prayer is the law of belief". In other words, we are a people that believe that what we pray and how we worship form God's people in a particular way. We ground ourselves in the teachings of the Scriptures, the Prayer Book, and we believe what Christians have always believed since the time of the historic creeds and councils. In particular, the creeds of the church (The Apostles’ Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Athanasian Creed) constitute the core of our beliefs. We also think that the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion are among the finest statements of the faith produced during the time of the Reformation and remain relevant for today’s world.
Anglican Communion in North America
We are church plant of the Anglican Church in North America.
We belong to the Diocese of the Great Lakes which includes churches in New York, Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky, Ohio, and Virginia.
We worship on Sundays and in our homes and parish groups using the 2019 ANCA Book of Common Prayer.