ABC from A to Z

Our Story

One of the things we like to do from time to time is to tell our life stories. We talk about the good times, the hard times, and the ways we’ve seen God move, redeem, and transform our lives.  

And as a church, we have a lifestory too. Our story starts long before our church did, all the way back in 1999 when we were just a twinkle in our parent church’s eye. A small group of Christians from a hodgepodge of different backgrounds gathered together at a home in Needham on a street called High Rock. We call it the dinner and Bible Study that got “out of hand” - because despite their differences, they shared a common vision that God could actually do something new through them in Greater Boston…

  • In 1999, a small group of Christians from a hodgepodge of different backgrounds gathered together at a home in Needham on a street called High Rock. Despite their differences, they shared a common vision that God could actually do something new through them in Greater Boston.

    Eventually, the group started to grow and began meeting in Cambridge, eventually choosing the name Highrock and calling themselves a church. They diversified in ethnicity and joined the Covenant Church, a denomination based in Chicago. Pretty soon, the congregation moved to Arlington and got deeply invested in what they called “radically local” ministry - getting to know their actual neighbors and investing in the town of Arlington. They wanted to love their actual neighbors as Christ does.

    In 2008, Highrock sent half their members to Brookline to start a new church there. And in 2012, Highrock had twins, launching two new independent churches that would be called Highrock, but could live out that same radically local DNA in new cities: one church plant launched in Quincy and the other one was our church, Highrock North Shore.

    How we came to be Highrock North Shore was kind of the perfect storm.

    In March of 2011 Pastor Aaron Engler, who was serving as the Young Adults pastor at Highrock Arlington at the time, met with the senior pastor, Dave Swaim, for his annual review. During the course of that conversation, the two pastors started to dream about what it would be like to plant a church on the North Shore.

    The following Sunday, Pastor Dave preached a sermon about loving the people in our actual communities. He challenged Highrockers to either move to Arlington or if they couldn’t, to gather a group of people in their area and consider planting a church where they lived.

    One Highrocker living on the North Shore started to look around at the people next to him in the pews. He realized a bunch of Highrockers were already commuting from the North Shore. Quite a crew, in fact. And he approached Dave after the service to suggest planting there.

    Within a few days, Highrock North Shore had a pastor, a place, and a people...a people that grew. At our church, we believe that a Christian will drive any distance to be part of a church community that they love. But our non-Christian neighbors likely won’t. So if we want to love as Christ did, to really show genuine, authentic community to people who don’t know him yet, we have to move into their neighborhood.

    This kind of community is contagious. On Maundy Thursday in 2011, 11 North Shore Highrockers gathered together for dinner in the Lees’ home. The following Maundy Thursday in 2012, there were 60.

    After those first conversations, we started meeting together for dinner and a Bible Study just like those first Highrockers on High Rock street, to dream and plan and pray. We started holding Sunday services in the Salem YMCA, then half a year later started renting space from the First Universalist Society in Salem and a few years later we moved to the First Baptist Church.

    In 2019, we began conversations with Dane Street Congregational Church, a 220 year old congregation in Beverly. They had led vital ministries on the North Shore for over two centuries, including one of the country’s first Sunday Schools, ministries to those struggling with food insecurity all the way back to the early 1800s, and sending out missionaries to India.

    On February 9, 2020, Partners at both congregations nearly unanimously voted to merge, and on March 8, 2020, Highrock North Shore “adopted” Dane Street Congregational Church, including their history, building, and congregation. At that point, we began the process of transferring assets and formally sunsetting Dane Street Congregational Church.

    That week, shelter-in-place guidelines from the COVID-19 pandemic hit Massachusetts, and after that first “adoption Sunday” gathering together as one church, we were forced to meet virtually for a year and a half. We began meeting in person again in May of 2021, and at that point, we started the process of integrating the congregations together, and expanding our ministry to include both Beverly and Salem.

    In February, 2022, the Highrock Network of Churches decided to dissolve their formal Partnership (read more about that decision here). In light of that decision, the Highrock congregations in Acton, Brookline, Haverhill, Malden, North Shore, and Quincy, which already had independent finances and leadership, discerned a new name to reflect their unique calling and story.

    Through congregational and pastoral discernment, we chose the name Anchor Bay Church to reflect our grounding in God’s word and history as a centuries old congregation (Anchor), while embracing the fluidity and movement of a youthful congregation (Bay). We are rooted and dynamic, young and old, inward and outward, deep and wide. We are a yes, and church.

    Over the past decade and beyond, God has used us to show each other his love in tangible and intangible ways. We’ve laughed together. We’ve cried together. We’ve told stories of God’s grace.

    We’ve brought each other meals when we’ve had new babies. We’ve taken weekend trips together, thrown parties for one another, carried each others' moving boxes, gone to each others’ art shows and soccer games and science fairs.

    Over the past few years, we’ve stood by each other as parents, wives, husbands, and babies have been in the hospital. We’ve faced death and depression and doubt together. We’ve witnessed new life together. We’ve supported each other through recovery and miscarriages. We’ve toasted each other with champagne to celebrate new jobs and new grandkids and new degrees. We’ve fought together and forgiven each other. We've done what we could to serve the North Shore in the name of Christ.

    Like those first Highrockers who gathered on High Rock Street, we come from a variety of different backgrounds. Our stories are different and so are our gifts.

    We are young and old and in-between, and some of us haven’t been born yet. We are Asian, Caucasian, German, Latina, Latino, and from Oklahoma. We are empty nesters and newlyweds, professors and students, scientists and singers, doctors and young professionals, bartenders and baristas, creative types and the not-so-much. We are social conservatives and social progressives, social activists and social workers, full-time parents and full-time kids. We are male and female, married, single, divorced, and it’s complicated.

    Some of us have loved Jesus for a long time and some of us are just getting to know him. But at the end of the day, we are drawn together by the love of Christ, the need for his grace, and compelled to live his mission in the world.

    That’s our story. Welcome aboard.

Our Vision

(Where God is Leading Us)

Transformation through loving Jesus, serving neighbors, & celebrating life!

Our Mission

(Why We Exist)

Creating a community on the North Shore that lives & loves in such a compelling & Christ-like way that our neighbors are inspired to seriously consider the claims of Christ.

Our Values

(What Keeps Us On Track)

  • Transformed by God’s love, we remove barriers in order to welcome all people into God’s community (Mark 2:2-4)

  • Wonder-struck by God’s grandeur, we seek wisdom by asking questions, wrestling with Scripture, and learning from many voices (Exodus 3:2-3)

  • Awed by God’s mystery, we depend on God fully while holding convictions humbly, and making generous assumptions about one another (Isaiah 55:8-9)

  • Freed by God’s grace, we offer one another truth and our true selves, all our weaknesses and strengths, as we journey together towards wholeness (2 Corinthians 4:5-7)

  • Convicted by Christ’s mission, we share one another’s burdens, and put love into action as we seek a whole world made new (Micah 6:8)

  • Energized by the Holy Spirit, we celebrate our God-given ability to create and to seek imaginative solutions toward the world’s renewal (Ephesians 2:10)

  • Compelled by Christ’s resurrection, we hold onto the hope of eternity, and cling to God’s promises throughout all of life’s seasons (Philippians 4:4-7)

Our Beliefs 

(What Steers Us)

We believe that theology is best done in conversation and in the context of relationship. So while some high level statements about what we believe and hold to be true can be made, anything beyond this is best done over a brew of one kind or another, and then after we’ve gotten to share stories about soccer camp or office drama or family milestones.

Our essential beliefs are summed up in what are called The Covenant Affirmations, which are core beliefs of our denomination, the Covenant Church. Their purpose is to make clear the values and principles that have guided Anchor Bay since the beginning. Click below for summaries on each affirmation or jump in the deep end here!

  • We believe the Bible is the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct (2 Timothy 3:16-17). The dynamic, transforming power of the word of God directs the church and the life of each Christian. This reliance on the Bible leads us to affirm both men and women as ordained ministers and at every level of leadership. It is the reason we pursue ethnic diversity in our church and is the inspiration for every act of compassion, mercy, and justice.

    Additionally, the Covenant Church affirms the historic confessions of the Christian Church, particularly the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, while emphasizing the sovereignty of the Word of God over all creedal interpretations.

  • The Apostle Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come” (2 Corinthians 5:17, NIV). New birth in Christ means committing ourselves to him and receiving forgiveness, acceptance, and eternal life. It means being alive in Christ, and this life has the qualities of love and righteousness, joy and peace.

    New birth is only the beginning. Growing to maturity in Christ is a lifelong process for both individuals and communities of believers. God forms and transforms us—and it is through people transformed by Christ that God transforms the world.

  • At Anchor Bay, we desire to carry out God’s mission both far and near. This includes evangelism, Christian formation, and ministries of compassion, mercy, and justice. We follow Christ’s two central calls: the Great Commission sends us out into all the world to make disciples. The Great Commandment calls us to love the Lord our God and our neighbors as ourselves.

  • Partnership in Anchor Bay is by confession of personal faith in Jesus Christ and is open to all baptized believers. We observe baptism and Holy Communion as sacraments commanded by Jesus. We practice both infant and believer baptism. We believe in the priesthood of all believers—that is, we all share in the ministry of the church.

    The church is not an institution, organization, or building. It is a grace-filled fellowship of believers who participate in the life and mission of Jesus Christ. It is a family of equals: as the New Testament teaches that within Christian community there is to be neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but all are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28).

  • Anchor Bay affirms the Trinitarian understanding of one God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The New Testament tells us that the Holy Spirit works both within individuals and among them. We believe it is the Holy Spirit who instills in our hearts a desire to turn to Christ, and who assures us that Christ dwells within us. It is the Holy Spirit who enables our obedience to Christ and conforms us to his image, and it is the Spirit in us that enables us to continue Christ’s mission in the world. The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts to us as individuals and binds us together as Christ’s body.

  • The Apostle Paul wrote, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free” (Galatians 5:1, NIV). This freedom is a gift of God in Christ, and it manifests itself in a right relationship with God and others. It is not a private gift to be used selfishly, but is given to serve the community and the world.

    For Paul, this freedom means that we are set free from the power of those things that on their own tend to divide. United in Christ, we offer freedom to one another to differ on issues of belief or practice where the biblical and historical record seems to allow for a variety of interpretations of the will and purposes of God. At Anchor Bay, we seek to focus on what unites us as followers of Christ, rather than on what divides us.

Our Name & Logo

Our name and logo are meant to connect us to our view of discipleship from Mark 3:13-19, which says: "Jesus went up on a mountainside and called to him those he wanted...that they might be with him and that he might send them out..."

  • That they might be with him & that he might send them out. Twin calls calls of discipleship - two invitations from Jesus to his disciples then and now that go hand in hand. 

    When we hear our name, Anchor Bay Church, the hope is that we would be reminded of that vision statement that Jesus gave his disciples long ago. Anchor represents our grounding, our rootedness, our safety and security in Christ (being with him). Bay represents safety but also sending - the idea that we are connected to the whole earth too (that he might send them out).

    We are a church that seeks to be deeply formed by God and God's word, to be with Jesus AND to be sent out on his mission in the world, to love mercy and do justice. Christ is keeping us centered and anchored while we explore the outward movement of God.

    Our logo centers on the cross, and our logo designer, Levi Nelson, has also incorporated the & in our logo so that we can remember our vision statement: Transformation through loving Jesus, serving neighbors, & celebrating life. 

    Click HERE to listen to the sermon where we introduced it all.

Our Leadership Team

Now You Know Your ABCs.