Damascus Road Church, a Marysville, WA Church

community group

Want to join one?

If you would like to attend a community group, we currently have four available meeting in different locations at various times. Feel free to contact any of the following leads regarding the specifics or click on the location for map. If you have any general questions about community groups, email

Arlington meets @ 4pm SUNDAYS Lead - Jim Fikkert 425-923-3843	Downtown Lake Stevens meets @ 6pm SUNDAYS Lead - Mark Hakso 425-422-3295
North Marysville meets @ 4pm SUNDAYS Lead - Brad Loomis 425-760-0589	North Marysville meets @ 5:30pm SUNDAYS Lead - Matt Nickel 425-238-7002
Marysville meets @ 6pm SUNDAYS Lead - Chris Rich 206-683-1378	Everett meets @ 7pm TUESDAYS Lead - Brant Bosserman 425-233-5406
Lake Stevens/Everett COMING SOON! Lead - Aaron Wartes 425-220-3312

Why have community groups?

Genuine fellowship isn't practical in a crowd, whether it be 100 or 1,000. Even as small as our church is right now, Sunday mornings prove to be one of the more difficult times to actually connect with one another. We might be able to muster a friendly hello, even have a brief but engaging conversation. Most times, however, very few meaningful conversations take place.

Among other things, our community groups help us to connect with one another in a smaller community within the larger community. We believe that small groups are important for our church, not as a means to build our church size, rather, as a way to build authentic relationships and thus build our church's health. Community is one of our core values. We believe that it is difficult to grow as a Christian alone. We believe God intended us to help one another, to encourage one another, and spur one another on towards looking more like Jesus. Therefore, we value getting to know each other, eating together, laughing together, crying together, praying with each other, and serving one another. .

What are the goals of community groups?

1. Develop a deep, authentic, and relevant faith walk with Jesus: The most important part of our community groups is our continued sanctification (or looking more and more like Jesus). In Christ we are justified, our position with God is one of acceptance and love. But we are still works in progress, slowly looking more and more like Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. Small groups are one way to find the encouragement, correction, and accountability that keep us from drifting. As important as it is to cultivate a personal relationship with God by practicing the spiritual disciplines, we need others to help us in our journey of sanctification. We hope these groups allow us to connect with Jesus as we learn and share about our mutual walks with Him.

2. Learn how to love and live in authentic community with a few other brothers and sisters in Christ: Being "authentic" means being real, raw, true, dirty, and honest. We believe that one of the greatest hindrances to our Christian growth, healthy relationships, and strong communities is a life of pretense. We pretend like we're not struggling with sin as we put the approval of men before God. Our goal is to live together in transparent repentance where we can admit our faults, our doubts, our weaknesses, and our wickedness as we run to the cross for forgiveness. In other words, we want to experience the freedom of being real and being accepted-that is the gospel!

We also believe that it is important that the church study the word together to build unity AND diversity. We must stop avoiding relationships with people different than ourselves. It does us no good to only be around people just like us, in the same life stages, going through the same issues. We need to learn from those younger, older, more experience, and more immature than us. In other words, our groups are full of married, single, young, old, rockers, and Sinatra fans

3. Get encouragement, partnership, and ideas on how to build relational bridges to other pre-Christians God has put in our lives where we work, live, study, and recreate. This is not intended to be some private Christian club where we hide away from the world and read our Bibles. Hopefully, our groups will have people coming in the front doors and the back doors. Ultimately, people come into our church needing conversion to one of two things. They either need to be converted to Jesus or a missional mindset-the idea of living as a "sent people" in the world. These groups will help us learn how to live out this missional lifestyle in all areas of our life.

Finally, we must remember, that the church is not a building and it's not a weekly event; it's people. Community groups serve as the foundation and architecture for the ongoing health and growth of Damascus Road.

What will we study?
The first study we will go through is called the "Gospel Class." Intended to serve as our membership class, this 10-week study will be spread over several months. The study includes core values of our church, essential doctrines of Christianity, stewardship of spiritual gifts, culture, the church, etc.

How often will we meet?
We will meet twice a month to begin with. Our intent is to have people look forward to these groups-not dread them. In our experience, we have seen how meeting once a week can prove burdensome for a number of reasons. Your group may decide to meet more regularly in the future.

What time do groups meet?
The group may decide when it is most convenient to meet twice a month. This may prove to be mid-week, Sunday afternoon, or some other time. The day and time is for each individual group and its leader to decide and commit to.

How are groups made?
Groups are made based primarily on geography. The hope is that the groups will exhibit diversity within the communities that they live. We realize that with only four groups, your location may not be completely convenient to meet at. In the future, as we train more leaders, we expect we will have more groups in various locations in and around the area.