The Church at Maltby Christian Assembly

The Beginning

The first service of Maltby Christian Assembly was held in 1983 in the Maltby Community Club under the leadership of Pastor Jim Brown. Jim & his wife Mary felt called to establish a new church in the Maltby area. This small group of Christ-followers continued to meet and in the winter of 1986, they began to meet at Maltby Elementary School, which was a great improvement and very encouraging to them.

Purchased First Property

A local property owner offered MCA a 5 acre parcel of land for an extremely reasonable price & carried the loan!  On May 6, 1986, MCA signed the papers to purchase this property next door to Maltby Elementary School. 

First Building

The Northwest District provided a “Mobile Chapel” and 1987 was spent preparing the property for it’s arrival.  This was a double wide “mobile” with a meeting room, kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and three small rooms to use for classes and office. 

Pastoral Change

Pastor Jim & Mary Brown decided to resign the pastorate at MCA in August of 1989 after 6 years of faithful service knowing that they had firmly established a new church. 

Pastor David & Sherry Brakke were approached by the NW District to candidate at MCA.  On September 17, 1989, Pastor David preached in the morning service and following an interview, was accepted by the local church and appointed by the Northwest District.  (At this time, the church was considered “Home Mission”, and under the oversight of the District.)

The Brakke’s were excited to begin ministry at Maltby Christian Assembly and knew that God had brought them there.  Three years prior to taking the MCA pastorate, David had felt called to plant a church in the Maltby/Woodinville area.  He worked with the District  to find a facility in the area and after pursuing many avenues over a year’s time & discovering that there was a new church meeting at Maltby Elementary School, knew that it was not yet God’s time to serve in that area.  Amazingly, three years later they were called to Maltby Christian Assembly and found that it was the same church that had been meeting in the Elementary School!  Their first service at MCA was October 8, 1989.

Growing

1990 & 91 were years of tremendous change at MCA.  The property was cleared of blackberries and put into lawn.  It was now visible to the community.  New ministries were being established and MCA was growing quickly.  Pastor David established a building committee & MCA began the lengthy process of a building project.  This was an exciting time for this small but growing church family as we outgrew the mobile chapel and were busy with architectural planning, civil engineering and county paperwork, and eventually construction.

New Building

Our ground breaking service was held May 31, 1992 and construction began the next day, June 1st.  The family of Christ was amazingly involved throughout the building process.  They gave of themselves throughout and made it possible with their prayers, finances and willingness to help.  They were also very patient while waiting for it’s completion and endured very tight facilities, lack of seating, parking, classrooms, air conditioning etc… 

We held our first service in MCA’s first “permanent” facility on Sunday December 6, 1992 with 135 people in attendance and had a Dedication Service in January  1993.   We trusted that God had planted this church and would continue to fulfill His purposes for it.

Growth -  Spiritually & Numerically

Throughout 1993 and 1994, God continued to bless the ministry of Maltby Christian Assembly.  On May 8th,1994, we added a second Sunday morning worship service in order to accommodate the growing congregation.  Steady growth continued both spiritually and numerically and the need for more space was evident.

Pastor David and the Board of Directors again appointed a Building Committee.  During the winter of 1995, Russell Higbee was construction coordinator of an addition.  This two story addition would provide a much needed Multi-Purpose Hall, many classrooms, and storage space.  This helped to facilitate our ministries to families with youth and children.  The addition was dedicated on May 21, 1995.

God continued to bless MCA.  Pastor Larry Baty who was currently attending the church, became the Associate Pastor and Ben Edstrom and Andy Geer worked with youth and young adults.  Eventually, both Ben & Andy received their Pastoral Licenses and officially joined the staff as youth and children’s pastors.

A third Sunday Morning Service was added on September 8, 1996 in order to allow for continued growth.  As MCA continued to Reach out to the Maltby Community, God blessed the various ministries of the church.  It was exciting to see so many  accept Jesus Christ as their Savior and be baptized, and to see lives changed as people grew in their faith.

Committed Together, Possessing the Land

The  continuing growth necessitated an evaluation of the facility.  The options were very limited for expansion and in March 1997 at the Annual Business Meeting it was voted to pursue the option of purchasing acreage on another site.  After much research and feasibility studies, 11.2 acres on Paradise Lake Road was selected as the most viable property for building relocation and the membership overwhelmingly voted to purchase it on October 19, 1997.  The beautiful property was dedicated during a service on June 13, 1999, and on October 20, 2002 we celebrated the Ground Breaking.

Construction

Rushforth Construction began building the 24,000 sq ft facility which had been designed by BCRA – Architectural Firm.  Pastor David & Sherry and a talented Building Committee & Design Team worked diligently, with Dave Flynn providing his expertise as Project Manager/Owner Representative.  The MCA church family sacrificed tremendously  through a financial campaign, “building the future today” and made the construction project possible.

New Building & New Location

We enjoyed our last services at 21300 99th Avenue SE  on Sunday, November 16th, 2003 and that night, we celebrated a  Dedication of the new Maltby Christian Assembly campus located at 9322 Paradise Lake Road.  The NW District’s Superintendent, Les Welk,  led the Dedication and the following Sunday, November 23, 2003, we had the Grand Opening Celebration Services at 9 & 11 am. There were 849 people in attendance that exciting day. 

Adjustments

2004 and 2005 were years of adjustment as we adapted to the new location and facility.  We were thrilled to have the much needed space, however with it came the challenges of continuing our friendly & family atmosphere in a much larger setting.  It also took much effort to adjust to the sound, projection, & computer technologies.  This was a season of stabilizing, establishing systems, and developing ministry teams and MCA entered the worldwide web with it’s first website!  

2006 - Year of Change

Just as we completed that adjustment period, we found that God had more change in store for our MCA family.  After many years of serving together, God was leading some members of the Pastoral staff in other directions.  In January 2006, Andy Geer left Maltby to plant a church, and we were thrilled to welcome Pastor Justin Farley and his wife Jana as our new Associate Pastor of Student Ministries.  June 2006, brought the resignation of Ben Edstrom and the arrival of Jolene Castor as our talented new Associate Pastor of Children’s Ministries.  Even more transitions were ahead, as we welcomed Pastor Tim Westerfield  as our new Executive Pastor and said goodbye to Pastor Larry & Rhoda Baty who were pursuing careers in life coaching.  Throughout this year of transition, God proved himself faithful as MCA continued to Reach, Build, and Send.  This was a tremendous season of re-evaluating and seeking God’s direction, and we clearly felt that God was leading MCA to change it’s mission from  “ Building  Bridges to People”  to  “Building Bridges to all generations, connecting People to Christ and to one another.”  God was leading us to emphasize that MCA is a cross-generational church.  

2007 - 2009 –Renewed & Restructured  & a Silver Celebration

The new pastoral staff members worked diligently to develop their areas of ministry   building teams, and establishing systems to fulfill our mission and purpose.   Part of this process was restructuring ministries around our purposes, as well as developing a church wide “spiritual journey” plan that would create a path to help people to make progress in their faith.  The exciting development of internship programs was  lead by Pastor Justin.

In 2008,  we celebrated the  25th Anniversary of Maltby Christian Assembly and we enjoyed a memorable gathering & lunch with special guests, Founding Pastor Jim & Mary Brown, and NWMN Superintendant, Les Welk.  We were blessed as we remembered God’s faithfulness in the past, celebrated His greatness for today and recognized His great plans for the future.  

In October of 2009, Pastor David & Sherry reached their 20 year anniversary of serving as Lead Pastor at the church at Maltby Christian Assembly.   Throughout 2009, the focus was on building quality systems within the church to better fulfill the mission. The church family continued to reach out to the community, region and the world through relational evangelism, bridge events and missions.

In the Fall of 2009, the first MCA coffee stand was opened  and we were excited about the success of our major bridge events such as Trunk or Treat,  the Hot Rods & Hogs Show,  the July Fireworks, and the Christmas outreaches of Sundays in December and the Christmas Eve by Candlelight. Looking back we see that 2008 and 2009 had an emphasis on “be the church” and equipping the church family to take their rightful place in reaching , building and serving for God’s Kingdom.  We are thankful that the church is not a building, but a spiritual family.

In 2011 we are thankful that God is using this church family to reach the world with his message of love and forgiveness.  We believe that our emphasis will be on loving, growing & serving . . .  other people and our God.  The Story Continues . . .