Alger Park Christian Reformed Church

Location: 2655 Eastern Avenue

Denomination: Christian Reformed Church

Alger Park doesn’t have a large college student population, but it’s a church that students can definitely take a lot away from as they grow with Christ. Alger Park was founded in 1952, back when the Alger Heights community was just taking shape, and is located at 2655 Eastern Avenue. Being between 28th Street and Alger Street, the campus is about an 11 minute drive from Calvin’s campus.

Alger Park, led by co-pastors Rev. Stephan De Wit and Rev. Sam Gutierrez, is part of the Christian Reformed Church (CRC). Pastor Gutierrez is a new addition to the church leadership, just arriving within the past few months. In fact, at the time of writing, Gutierrez has only given one sermon at Alger Park, so church members are excited to enter this new season of the church’s life with Gutierrez. De Wit, who has been at the church for a little more than 10 years, brings a thoughtful and witty perspective to his sermons.

Worship begins at 9:30a.m. and is more traditional in style: hymns and traditional songs played on piano and organ. Once a month, there is a praise band where the music is more contemporary than other weeks. Services typically follow a standard format: a call to worship followed by liturgical calls and responses with the songs for the week mixed in, prayer, an offertory, the sermon and the ending song with a blessing.

Once a month, communion of bread and grape juice is served after the sermon. Sermons vary from week to week with an occasional sermon series that will last a few weeks, such as the sermon series this summer about the Lord’s Prayer, looking at one line at a time. The church welcomes everyone post-service to the fellowship hall for coffee, cookies and juice.

Alger Park can be summed up in its vision statement, “To go deeper into our context, deeper into relationships and deeper into the gospel.” In this case, “context,” means where God has placed you, who you are, and what is happening in the world. Alger helps students accomplish this within their own personal “context.”