About Us

At Lake Forest Church, our mission is to love people as they discover and live out their role in God’s story. We’re a community of spiritual explorers, skeptics, and followers of Christ, seeking to better know Jesus personally and participate in his work in our world.

meet our team
learn more

Our Values

We are committed to living out the values of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our mission is to love God, love others, and share the good news of Jesus Christ. 


Welcome who Jesus Welcomed

We’re a church for people who’ve given up on church, but not on God. We’re inviting people to belong with us before they believe, in friendship and at church, never mocking or belittling those with whom we disagree. We hold to clarity in Christian essentials; freedom in cultural, political and Biblical matters; and ultimately, love in all things.


Love Like Jesus

We love others with grace and truth. Worship, we’re cultivating a culture of grace and understanding where it’s safe to reveal woundedness without a risk of rejection, in order to create space for God’s healing. We value teaching and small group communities that reflect Biblical grace and truth, and growing in our passion for scripture by studying it individually and together.


Live like Jesus

We’re rejecting “consumer Christianity” and rather spending ourselves for the sake of others. We’re traveling near and far, to serve people who are like us, and not like us, people who are hungry for God or hungry for food. We call this mission the “Missio Dei” which means mission of God and our goal is for 100% of Ministry Partners to have a short-term, cross-cultural mission experience.



Journey like Jesus

We’re leading every child, student and adult to belong in a Christ-centered small group community. We also partner with parents in the spiritual and character development of their children and youth. We’re called to make room to contribute to each other’s spiritual journey in friendship, hopefully “Doing a few things well” as a life-giving principle for personal, family and church schedules.


Lead like jesus

We prioritize creating more and better disciples of Christ. As individuals, we influence others through personal relationships. In worship, we utilize creative influence through relevant subject matter, engaging art forms and compelling personal stories. And finally as a whole church, we create strategic opportunities to raise up one more disciple, leader and church at a time.

Our Beliefs

We invite you to explore our beliefs to better understand our roots and hopes for our community.

  • The Bible

    The Bible is the final authority on all matters to which it speaks. It is God’s completely true story about who he is, what he has done, what he is doing and what He will do. It was given by God to human writers, and this is reflected through their backgrounds, styles and language.

  • God

    There is one God, who exists as three persons living in perfect community – Father, Son and Spirit. God created everything and sustains everything with his life. He is holy, all-powerful, all-knowing, unchanging and full of mercy and grace.

  • Jesus Christ

    Jesus Christ, God’s only son, was born to the Virgin Mary fully human and fully God. He lived a perfect life in place of our imperfect ones, and died the death we deserved because of our sin as our substitute; his resurrection provided us full life. When Jesus Christ physically rose from the dead, He ascended into heaven. Today He serves as our representative, intercessor and advocate with God the Father.

  • Holy Spirit

    We experience the full life and presence of God in our relationship with God the Spirit, who convicts us of sin, points us to Christ and applies Christ’s work in our lives. He gives gifts and power to the church, creates biblical community within the church, reveals the truth and guides our lives, both individually and together.

  • Faith in Jesus

    There is only one way to connect with God – by choosing to accept the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation God offers to us through Jesus Christ’s life, death and resurrection. God will treat us like Christ, because He treated Christ like us – all we have to do is ask. God’s gift of grace makes us His adopted sons and daughters. There is nothing we do to deserve this life; it is all a gift from God. Our job is simply to receive the gift of life and when we do, God begins the process of changing our hearts and minds from the inside out to transform our character to be more like Jesus. Just as we have been reconciled to God, we also have hope in becoming fully reconciled to others.

  • The Church

    If we are in a relationship with Christ, we are part of the church. Although the church is universal, it is always expressed locally. The church is the visible and local demonstration of the new community Christ came to create. Our community life is led by the Spirit and is devoted to:

    • Worshipping God
    • Understanding and Applying The Bible to Our Lives
    • Offering Connections to Others and Living Life Together
    • Serving our Community and using our Spirit-given gifts to Serve Christ and Others


    The church celebrates the Sacraments of Baptism and Communion, which are gifts from Christ that represent the experiences of His promise and presence with us. The church is made up of imperfect people who are responding day by day in all of their relationships to God’s stunning grace. The main responsibility of the church is to offer connections to people who do not have a relationship with Christ by offering Christ’s full life and helping those who respond to become whole-hearted Christ-followers.

  • Christ’s Return

    In His own time and way, God will bring the world as we know it to an end. According to His promise, Christ will return personally and visibly to judge the living and the dead to begin the new era of God’s universally visible reign which will last forever, which the Bible calls “the new heavens and new earth.”