The mission of Pine Lake Covenant Church began in the mid-1960s when only a few homes set in a woodsy rural setting were present. The property was purchased on faith that someday a community would take root and that a church would be ready for the new families.
In 1980 four young families from Mercer Island Covenant Church formed the core of an organizing group to plant a church on the Sammamish Plateau. By 1982, 32 adults signed the charter to formally create a new faith community to serve the greater Issaquah and Redmond areas. They held their first public worship services using the Lutheran Bible Institute building and called Eric Josephson as their Pastor and then Pastor Don Robinson who would serve for 10 years until 1996.
By 1988 construction began on the property, and on Easter Sunday, 1989 the first church service was held. At that dedication of the church facility, these “missionaries” did something else extraordinary. Robert Larson, the visionary who purchased the property noted this event: “When most churches hold on to everyone they have for fear of the debt, PLCC commissioned four families to become the nucleus of a new church in North Bend. I have never seen this before, and I don’t believe that this has ever happened again. This was, in my judgment, a magnanimous gesture on the part of the then young congregation.”
In 1998 PLCC called its third Pastor, Chris Breuninger who served for 12 years. As the congregation grew rapidly, new building projects followed to include the expansion of the parking lot and building of the Family Life Center by 2003 as a resource to the community.
In July of 2012, Dr. Mark Meredith joined the staff as our new Lead Pastor. In the fall of 2012, Pine Lake Covenant Church began a season of RePlanting, reconnecting us with our vision, and renewing our outward focus to reach those in our community and beyond with Christ’s love.
In 2015 we had a Vision 2020 weekend where we imagined, dreamed, and discerned what God was calling us to in the year 2020. We narrowed our focus to five themes: outreach, discipleship, intergenerational life, diversity, and stewardship. We have built our plans around these five themes to faithfully reach a changing world with the gospel of Christ. In the spring of 2017 we engaged in the Accelerate the Vision campaign, which will enable us to resource these five themes.
The DNA of Pine Lake Covenant Church was forged by people who saw themselves always as an enduring church and who wanted to invest their time and resources to benefit the generations to come. Today, PLCC continues this commitment to be a “city on a hill” and to come alongside those for whom God grieves, both in our local communities and globally.