Our Story

When we started Mountain Lake Church, we didn’t necessarily feel from the beginning that Cumming needed a new church.  We DID feel like it needed a different kind of church.  So on January 16, 2000, as Y2K dust settled, Mountain Lake Church held our "Grand Opening" and began weekend worship services for the first time.  Services were held each week at Sawnee Primary School.

 

Though having church services in a cafeteria was a little different, and at times, difficult (EVERYTHING our church owned had to be brought in and set up each weekend for our worship services!), the school was perfect in many ways because of the mission of our church.  From the beginning, Mountain Lake has sought to be a safe place primarily for those disconnected from Christ and the Church; maybe even turned off on church and organized religion, and looking for something different.  From the first day, all of our efforts focused on being a  "Church for the Unchurched".

 

Over the next two years, we saw God change dozens and dozens of lives while MLC grew to almost 200 in attendance.  In fact, we began to realize that we were quickly outgrowing the facilities available at the primary school.  So on our second anniversary, we made a risky decision to move five miles north in the county, to North Forsyth High School.

 

At the High School, we began to have even greater influence on our community; especially in regards to the students in our area.  God was also changing the lives of families, families that had been previously disconnected in many ways.  We continued to grow in our influence in the community, but we felt like we would reach a lid at some point, until we were able to purchase property and move on to a permanent worship campus.  So early in 2003, Mountain Lake negotiated contracts on what would end up being 32+ acres of land where the North Forsyth Campus is now located.
 

Current North Forsyth campus
It was just August of 2003, when we moved onto this worship campus and since that time our church has now seen hundreds and hundreds of new people find a place to belong and a place to become.

 

In May of 2005 we doubled our facilities to help meet the needs of our growing church.  Our church is still a baby church in so many ways, and yet we have gone through growth stages in just a few short years that churches usually experience over numerous decades.

 

And now, we are working on our next expansion! We moved into our new 1,200 seat auditorium in August of 2009 to better serve the growing needs of our church community. Our current worship environment has been turned over to the Children's Ministry to create an even more exciting and relevant space for kids.

 

As we began to look forward in the life of our church, God placed a vision on our hearts to expand beyond the North Forsyth area and start multiple campuses of Mountain Lake to have greater impact and reach more people for God.

 

A look over our shoulder into our short past gives us a glimpse of a powerful picture of the future as Christ leads our church there!