Our History

This congregation began with a dream to plant a new congregation in a growing suburban area.

In the early 1960s church leaders identified an area just north of Minneapolis that was poised for population growth.  With a desire to bring both the churched and unchurched to a local congregation a mission developer was hired and began to knock on the doors of people living in Brooklyn Park.  He soon gathered a small core group of people committed to the work of outreach and evangelism.  After months of prayer and hard work the first official worship service was conducted in a nearby elementary school.  In the early years there were only a few dozen people in the congregation but the vision endured and the suburb began to grow and God continued to bless.

The first church building was very modest but the love for God was genuine and the closeness of the congregation gave them strength.

In the mid-60s Pastor Harley Schmitt was called as pastor and led the congregation for the next 27 years.  His ministry was a time of great growth and development both spiritually and numerically.

Under his leadership the congregation conducted several building programs while the surrounding community began to develop and change.

But even more significantly, God used Pastor Harley and the other pastors and leaders to forge the core values that define the congregation to this day.

From that era this congregation was established in a strong doctrine of the authority and reliability of the Bible.  An emphasis on bringing people into a personal and life-transforming relationship with Jesus became a hallmark of the ministry.  These years were also the peak years of the historic charismatic renewal in mainline churches and that movement and the gifts and work of the Holy Spirit were embraced and integrated.  An emphasis on prayer, world missions, and service to the community emerged as missional priorities.  Yet, even during these years of growth an expansion, a core value of caring and support among the members remained a defining characteristic.

The congregation entered a time of great transition upon the retirement of the senior pastor after 27 years.

In 1996 Todd Wallace was called to be the second senior pastor in the history of the congregation and once again a new era was initiated.

Pastor Wallace brought the gifts of focused leadership, missional innovation, and team building to the ministry.  During the next decade the congregation completed its largest building program to date and an increase in attendance and membership followed.

The small congregation first established in a new suburb became a large congregation that includes elements of the multi-cultural and urban realities of the surrounding community.  In the year 2007 the congregation entered yet another new era.  Having maximized the capacity of the current building and original location the congregation began to look for further opportunities to expand the ministry into the still-growing Northwest Metropolitan area of Minneapolis.  From this prayerful quest a new missional strategy and deeper identity emerged.

In the fall of 2007 Discover Church-Champlin was launched in the Mann Theater and we became a multi-site congregation.  We are One Church meeting in Multiple Locations.

Our vision for the future leads us towards having a number of different worship sites in a number of different communities and locations that will be networked together for strength, support, and further expansion.  This is called The Discover Church Network.

And with this development the history of the congregation is renewed and brought full circle.

We began as a gathering of people committed to outreach and evangelism and the establishment of a worshipping community open to all.

We are living this reality again in new and innovative ways that are relevant to our missional context.

To the glory of God and good of others we look into the future convinced that our best years lie ahead.