SonRise Evangelical Free Church
218-784-3733
efree@loretel.net
Our focus at SonRise Evangelical Free Church is proclaiming the gospel of Jesus. We explore God’s Word and apply it to our lives daily as we seek to intentionally grow disciples who follow Jesus Christ.
If you are looking for a church home, or if you are interested in knowing more about what being a Christian means, please join us in worship on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. We extend a warm welcome to you in Christ’s name.
Our church is affiliated with the Evangelical Free Church of America, a growing denomination of 1200 churches committed to the historical doctrines of the Christian faith. SonRise is a church in the Northern Plains District Conference of the EFCA. We express the good news of God’s love expressed in the gracious work of Jesus and the authority of the Bible as the divine Word of God.
What We Believe
EFCA Statement of Faith
Adopted by the Conference on June 26, 2008
The Evangelical Free Church of America is an association of autonomous churches united around these theological convictions:
God
1. We believe in one God, Creator of all things, holy, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in a loving unity of three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Having limitless knowledge and sovereign power, God has graciously purposed from eternity to redeem a people for Himself and to make all things new for His own glory.
The Bible
2. We believe that God has spoken in the Scriptures, both Old and New Testaments, through the words of human authors. As the verbally inspired Word of God, the Bible is without error in the original writings, the complete revelation of His will for salvation, and the ultimate authority by which every realm of human knowledge and endeavor should be judged. Therefore, it is to be believed in all that it teaches, obeyed in all that it requires, and trusted in all that it promises.
The Human Condition
3. We believe that God created Adam and Eve in His image, but they sinned when tempted by Satan. In union with Adam, human beings are sinners by nature and by choice, alienated from God, and under His wrath. Only through God’s saving work in Jesus Christ can we be rescued, reconciled and renewed.
Jesus Christ
4. We believe that Jesus Christ is God incarnate, fully God and fully man, one Person in two natures. Jesus—Israel’s promised Messiah—was conceived through the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. He lived a sinless life, was crucified under Pontius Pilate, arose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father as our High Priest and Advocate.
The Work of Christ
5. We believe that Jesus Christ, as our representative and substitute, shed His blood on the cross as the perfect, all-sufficient sacrifice for our sins. His atoning death and victorious resurrection constitute the only ground for salvation.
The Holy Spirit
6. We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that He does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners, and in Him they are baptized into union with Christ and adopted as heirs in the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers for Christ-like living and service.
The Church
7. We believe that the true church comprises all who have been justified by God’s grace through faith alone in Christ alone. They are united by the Holy Spirit in the body of Christ, of which He is the Head. The true church is manifest in local churches, whose membership should be composed only of believers. The Lord Jesus mandated two ordinances, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, which visibly and tangibly express the gospel. Though they are not the means of salvation, when celebrated by the church in genuine faith, these ordinances confirm and nourish the believer.
Christian Living
8. We believe that God’s justifying grace must not be separated from His sanctifying power and purpose. God commands us to love Him supremely and others sacrificially, and to live out our faith with care for one another, compassion toward the poor and justice for the oppressed. With God’s Word, the Spirit’s power, and fervent prayer in Christ’s name, we are to combat the spiritual forces of evil. In obedience to Christ’s commission, we are to make disciples among all people, always bearing witness to the gospel in word and deed.
Christ’s Return
9. We believe in the personal, bodily and premillennial return of our Lord Jesus Christ. The coming of Christ, at a time known only to God, demands constant expectancy and, as our blessed hope, motivates the believer to godly living, sacrificial service and energetic mission.
Response and Eternal Destiny
10. We believe that God commands everyone everywhere to believe the gospel by turning to Him in repentance and receiving the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that God will raise the dead bodily and judge the world, assigning the unbeliever to condemnation and eternal conscious punishment and the believer to eternal blessedness and joy with the Lord in the new heaven and the new earth, to the praise of His glorious grace. Amen.
HISTORY OF SONRISE EVANGELICAL FREE
The Lord first called this body together as a Bible study with 4 couples in August of 1992 under the teaching and mentoring leadership of Pastor Bob Salstrom and his wife, Clarice, of Grand Forks. The group grew by 4 more couples and agreed to begin the process to become a church in the Evangelical Free Church of America in October 1992. A hayride soon followed as our first official meeting of the newly formed church. A mother church plant committee of the Northern Plains District of the EFCA, headed by Pastor Steve Benton of Cummings EFC, was organized to assist and direct us. This included men from various churches of the Northern Plains District. Purchasing our first building for $2000 in December of 1992, we recognized that the Lord had established a place for us to grow in families, faith, and fellowship.
With the walls half-painted and the light fixtures barely hung, we started conducting Sunday night services and business meetings in January 1993, continuing under the teaching of Pastor Bob Salstrom. Our first official action taken at our first business meeting was to begin a children’s ministry to assist families with raising children in God’s Word. We chose Awana. By March 1993 we had 8 families in the church, and we called our first pastor, Mark Widman, a seminary student at the time. Pastor Mark Widman and his wife, Kara, joined our church family in July 1993, with Sunday morning services starting August 1993.
Over the next 8 years,the Lord grew our church family together from may parts of the county. The Lord blessed us with an eagerness to grow in fellowship with Christ and with one another. Ministries started growing and taking off. We also changed our name from the Norman County Evangelical Free Church to a more catchy version: Evangelical Free Church of Norman County. The Lord sustained us through the trials of the ’97 flood and also brought us through the departure of several church families from Norman County. As quickly as one family moved on, the Lord in His faithfulness would bring in a new family to fill the gap. By 2001, we had outgrown our church facility and accepted an invitation from Faith United congregation of Ada to enter into an agreement to rent space.
With grateful hearts to the Lord for the ministry, love , and service of the Widman family which grew to 4 children , we bid them farewell in May 2001 as the Lord called them away to serve Him in north central Minnesota. That summer, we mourned the first two deaths of our church family. The Lord proved His faithfulness to us in this very significant time of emotional fatigue. Without a pastor, we grew more dependent on the Lord and on one another as we moved forward in faith , and by His strength we carried out the many responsibilities of the body.
With the conviction that God had prepared the way for us to recognize His choice for the following stage in our church life, we called our next pastor in January 2002. We received with thanksgiving Pastor Patrick McCarty and his wife, Danielle, along with the 2 sons. During this time, we voted for another name change and we became the SonRise Evangelical Free Church.
We had been asking the Lord for our own building – a home; a place we can grow in families, fellowship, and faith. And though God had provided for our needs through the arrangement at Faith United, we were aware that renting this facility is not something we could rely on to reach the ministry potential within our own church body. In May 2008, our congregation voted by an overwhelming majority to bid on the Ada Train Depot which was coming up for auction. The Lord provided, and our bid to purchase the depot was successful. In January of 2011, after months of fund raising and renovations, we moved into our current location at 300 West Main , Ada. In His faithfulness, God has given us a place to call home.
The Lord called Pastor McCarty and his family back home to the east coast to serve Him in a New York church in August 2009. After months of weekly visiting speakers and pastors, Interim Pastor, Dr. Jack Smith with his wife Ethel, moved here to shepherd our congregation from Jan – May 2010 .
In God’s goodness , Pastor David Ingraham answered the call to be our pastor and came to SonRise along with his wife, Jen and their 4 children in August 2010.
SonRise has been abundantly blessed with the pastors God has called to serve our church body over the years, along with the families who have called SonRise home.
In August 2022 SonRise moved back into the former Faith United Church building located at 510 W. Thorpe Ave. With a new look, and a lot of excitement we are praying that God would continue to be faithful to bless this community and the families who call SonRise home.
We are grateful. Over 30 families now make up the fellowship here at SonRise from various parts of Norman County. The life of our church is expressed in Christ-centered teaching, personal heartfelt worship, fellowship, Bible study and prayer . The church has a strong history of reaching out with God’s Word to the young and providing support to moms. Our prayer is for SonRise to be a place that develops followers of Christ and that we as a church body will glorify God in who we are and all we do. To view in more detail the expression of who we are, please visit our ministry page.