OUR STORY

The original New Life Community Church sign in Wayland 
We started with a simple belief: 
Jesus still makes lives new.

New Life was planted in Wayland in 2011 by Mike and Kim Hewitt out of Kentwood Community Church. We were born with a heart to create a church for this community. Not simply another place to attend, but a community where people could encounter Jesus, find hope, and discover that their past did not have to define their future.

We called it New Life because that is what we believed Jesus was offering.

And we still do.

A baptism during the early years of New Life Church
A pastor preaching during an early New Life Church gathering 
Before we had a building, 
we had a mission.
Wayland Union High School Fine Arts Center where New Life once gathered
New Life Church praying with people during an outdoor community gathering at Wayland City Park

The early years of New Life looked a little different than they do today. We gathered in the Wayland Union High School Fine Arts Center on Saturday nights, set things up, tore things down, and kept learning what it meant to be a church rooted in Wayland.

But from the beginning, New Life was never supposed to stay inside a room.

Our approach to ministry has always been about going into unexpected places throughout the community because doing church the way it had always been done was not going to reach everyone. People were finding faith, being baptized, rebuilding families, and discovering a new way of life in Jesus.

We spent seasons gathering in the Fine Arts Center, were welcomed into the buildings of other local churches, and even spent an entire summer worshiping together under the open sky at Wayland City Park.

The methods have changed over the years. The heartbeat has not.

Go where people are. Love people well. Help people experience the transforming love of Jesus.

New Life Church serving and celebrating with people in the Wayland community
An early New Life Church worship gathering in a local church building 
We found a home in the 
heart of Wayland

Eventually, New Life put down deeper roots in the community we had been called to love.

In 2017, our church began gathering at 160 Pine Street in downtown Wayland, but we have never wanted our building to be the finish line. It is a launching point. A place to worship, grow, find community, care for our neighbors, raise up the next generation, and then carry the love of Jesus back into the places where we live every day.

Because we believe the Church is at its best when what happens inside the building changes the way we live outside of it.

Group of five young men working together to move and arrange large stones and bricks outside a brick building, possibly during a construction or community project.
Group of people, including two holding framed certificates, posing together indoors for a photo at an award or recognition event.
Group of people standing in line holding sheets of paper inside a large industrial space, with children sitting on the floor and boxes on a table in the foreground. 
Then our story became 
part of a bigger one.
Black and white photo of a smiling man with glasses, a beard, and wavy hair, standing on stage with stage lights overhead, wearing a dark button-up shirt and jeans.
A woman wearing glasses and a leather jacket singing into a microphone with her arms raised in a performance setting.

In 2019, New Life entered a new chapter as part of the Zero Collective, a family of churches throughout the West Michigan area united around one audacious vision:

ZERO PEOPLE LIVING UNCHANGED BY JESUS.

That vision gave language to something that had been beating in the heart of New Life from the beginning.

We want to see people know Jesus. We want broken things restored. We want people to discover that God has given their lives purpose. We want needs met, disciples made, and the Kingdom of God carried far beyond our walls.

Today, New Life is a vibrant part of the Zero Collective pursuing that mission together while remaining deeply rooted in the unique community God has given us to serve.

And we believe the best part 
of the story is still being written.

A lot has changed since 2011.

Different spaces. Different seasons. Different faces filling the room. But underneath all of it is the same conviction that started this church:

Jesus changes people.

Not polished people. Not people who have everything figured out. People like us.

So wherever you are coming from, whatever your history with church has been, and however unfinished your story may feel, there is room for you here.

Because New Life's story is the story of ordinary people being made new by Jesus, then carrying that new life into the world around them.

And by the grace of God, we're just getting started.

A man with glasses and tattoos is smiling and being baptized in a large water basin, with others smiling and reaching out to him. The background shows an audience and signs that say "NL Zero."