Transitioning

Better Life Church to breathe life back into iconic Newaygo eatery

Cronk’s restaurant was known for putting out a sumptuous salad bar and buffet as well as serving as a primary location for political discourse on most mornings.The longtime Newaygo landmark, closed since the early days of the pandemic, will soon be seeing some action beyond the occasional food truck visit.
Better Life Church, new to our area,  will be  holding  services at the site beginning Sunday January 9th at 10:30am.
Co-pastors Clint and Michelle Abbot will be conducting the services and the church will also provide Better Life For Kids with services designed for children up to 5th grade.
We posed a few questions regarding their new initiative.

 N3-How did the church get started? Has it been meeting in a temporary site prior to making this move?
My wife and I hosted a couple of "New Church Interest" meetings at our home. We had about 20 people express interest and from that point we began the organization process.
We held "launch team" meetings in our home for 3 months preparing for a January 9th launch or opening day.

N3-How long has BLC been meeting locally?  
3 months with training and preparation for the January 9, 2022 opening day.  
  
N3-How many members?
 We have about 25 on our launch team.

N3-There are a couple of  mega churches in Kentucky with the same name. Any affiliation?  
No affiliation. We are non denominational. We freely connect with ARC (Association of Related Churches, a non denominational church planting organization) because we believe in planting churches in the US and abroad.

N3-How did the name come about? 
Michelle and I believe God is leading us to plant a life giving church, filled with the Spirit of God. That we believe is the vision God has called us to.
This vision becomes alive when we help people realize the words of Jesus in John 10:10, “The thief has come to kill and destroy but I have come that you might have it abundantly (better).”
Michelle and I know what it’s like to live apart from the presence and blessings of God. But we have witnessed Him taking the two of us, who were literally kids when we married and the cards stacked against us, and blessing us over and over again the more that we trusted Him.
Despite the situations that life “could throw” at our and our marriage, we believe that the life we have with Jesus is better than if we had never trusted. Further, we believe the best is yet to come.
Yet, so many people settle for less because they listen to what I call “the voice of less.” We believe in that verse that Jesus wants to speak and be “the voice of more” in people’s lives.So that’s why we believe God has birthed this vision of Better Life Church in our hearts. We truly want others to enjoy this abundant or better life as we have and that they might also realize, with Jesus as their Savior, the best is yet to come.

N3-Tell us a little about yourselves
We have been married 48 years, have 3 sons, 1 daughter in-law, 2 grandsons and a granddaughter. We have been in church work for over 45 years (volunteer youth ministry, children's ministry and the past 30 years in vocational pastoral ministry). We have served in existing churches and planted churches. (We planted the New Community Church of Newaygo 25 years ago). 
We are native to Newaygo, having grown up here and lived here much of our lives. For the past 13 years (2006-2019) we were in the Kentwood/Caledonia area serving in pastorates. We returned to Newaygo the summer of 2019 for family reasons and felt the leading of the Lord this past fall to plant a new, life giving church in the Newaygo area.

N3-Why Cronk’s?
God's providence!  It was available and the Lord just provided the timing to be right.

N3-Why should people come to BLC?
There are many good churches in our area. We desire to partner with them to reach more people for Jesus.  If everyone in Newaygo County wanted to attend a church on a given Sunday, there's not enough seating capacity for them. I  believe that our Lord desires His house to be full. We are happy to partner with others and reach as many people as possible for Christ.  Another reason people should come (and quite unique with our ministry) is our purpose: to help people know God, find freedom, discover their purpose and to make a difference in the world.  We have an intentional pathway I call our Growth Track that makes that possible.

N3-Will there be any COVID protocols?
No, we allow individuals the freedom to decide what is best for themselves.
 
For more information you can visit their website at  www.betterlifepeople.com ​