Church of Christ in Sequim

Location: 107 E. Prairie St. (American Legion Hall)

Pastor Jerry MacDonald

Service times: 10 a.m. Bible study; 11 a.m. worship service

7 p.m. Wednesday night Bible study (currently book of Acts)

Contact: 808-1021; biblepage@att.net

Web: www.churchofchristinsequim.com

More info: Write MacDonald at: PO Box 1621, Sequim, WA 98382 or visit theancientplan.com.

Pastor Jerry MacDonald, 71, looks to take his motto of reaching people one-by-one to Sequim.

Throughout his 40-plus years of preaching he’s helped start a handful of churches and helped struggling ones survive. Now he’s turning his attention to a Sequim congregation looking to grow.

For seven months he’s led the Church of Christ in Sequim at the Sequim American Legion Hall.

MacDonald, an Everett native, was considering retirement prior to the move from Tennessee, but said he couldn’t do it.

“I was eager to get back to preaching the gospel,” he said.

He’s helped start churches in Washington and Illinois, including the North Seattle Church of Christ, and preached anywhere and everywhere, including by the Sea of Galilee. Starting churches and leading Bible studies are two of his passions, he said.

“With big churches you can lose a lot of the personality,” he said, “but with smaller congregations, it can be more one-on-one and you’re helping people in their lives.”

MacDonald says when the light goes on in people’s eyes about God, it reminds him of himself years ago when he became a Christian.

MacDonald served in Europe during the Vietnam War as a crew chief for an Otter airplane and missed a tour in Vietnam after catching pneumonia. Instead he went with the next group to France, which he said made him angry at the time but now he realizes God had other plans for him.

He married his childhood sweetheart Pamalla after his duty and soon after his first son was born two months prematurely he became a Christian.

Since then, he’s reached people all over the world with sermons, books and his “Teaching by Cards” Bible learning series that has been printed in `more than 40,000 editions in five languages.

Sequim’s church

MacDonald said the Church of Christ in Sequim focuses strictly on the Bible.  “If we lose the New Testament pattern, then we lose identity,” he said.

The Sequim church is non-denominational and is autonomous of a larger organization with each congregation in charge of its self.

MacDonald describes Sundays as a pure, first-century worship service that’s close to what the earliest Christians did. This includes an intense Bible study for an hour followed by a sermon, a cappella hymns and the Lord’s Supper.

Ashley White, a member of the church, said the major prompt to bring in MacDonald and his wife were to create a church closer for locals commuting on Sundays to Port Townsend.

“We’re very encouraged,” White said about the upstart church. “It’s a small group with 16-20 people on Sundays but when we started out in late July we had 12-14.”

MacDonald said the congregation is looking to grow and he’s looking for a successor to train and leave the church to after he leaves.

“Our aim is to spread the gospel in the Sequim area and find people who are looking for God’s truth,” White said.

“That is our aim. We are a group who get along well together and we stick to Scripture as best as we can.”

For now, MacDonald plans to continue doing what he feels he’s done best — “sharing God’s message for salvation is the most important thing I’ll ever do.”

For more information on the Church of Christ in Sequim, visit www.churchofchristinsequim.com; call 808-1021; or email biblepage@att.net.