3:16 Church is part of the Assemblies of God fellowship. Biannually we have a General Council where over 16,000 people come together to worship Jesus.
3:16 Church was started in 2008 as a multi site church of Northridge Church of Marshfield Wisconsin. Pastor Gayland Hendrickson had a vision to start a healthy expression of church in every town where there was a Marshfield clinic. The logic was simple. If the community could support a place for physical healing then it should also have a place to experience spiritual healing. Pastor Gayland would literally drive back and forth every Sunday from Abbotsford to Marshfield to preach at both locations for the first couple of years.
In 2010 a pastoral change took place in Marshfield. As one of his last acts as the Marshfield Pastor, Gayland appointed Pastor Will Krebs as the first full time Lead Pastor at the Abby NRC site. Northridge Church of Abbotsford became a sovereign church with it's own board and vision. Pastor Will continued to faithfully serve "Abby NRC" for the next 10 years leading the church from their original meeting location in the Colby public high school to purchasing & overseeing the volunteer remodeling of it's current location at 122 N. 2nd street.
Pastor Will & Jenn Krebs are to be commended for their leadership and vision during these first few years of the new church. In the short time since it has become sovereign 3:16 Church has accepted the call to plant churches, support missionaries, and inner city missions. 3:16 Church has helped plant two churches in the Northern Central Wisconsin area in the first 12 years of it's existence and is currently supporting a church plant in Milwaukee Wisconsin that directly reaches out to Native American populations, while also supporting diverse U.S. Missions organizations such as the National Black Fellowship of the Assemblies of God, and Youth Alive, which reaches out to public schools to support students with mental and emotional health awareness seminars all over Wisconsin and Northern Michigan.
In the midst of the Covid 19 pandemic Pastor Will felt the calling of God leading him into full time Chaplaincy in the Aspirus network of hospitals. His last Sunday was in August of 2020.
Meanwhile Pastor Joe Bridger was in Michigan sensing God's calling somewhere within the state of Wisconsin. Pastor Joe and his wife Dorothy had helped with several church plants as Children's and Family Pastors and were familiar with the DNA of a church in transition. During a very unique time in the history of the country, after several weeks of online video conference calls and much prayer and fasting, the elders approved and appointed Pastor Joe. The congregation echoed the decision with a 100% vote of confidence and on December 6th, 2020 the church received the Bridger family!
The church began the process of safely reopening each ministry as the country recovered from 2020 and 2021. 3:16 has restarted the worship and Sunday morning gatherings, multiplied our online presence to multiple social media platforms, restarted the children's ministry, Youth Ministry, re-engaged the community in public outdoor outreaches and worship services, re-imagined membership classes & begun baptizing again with our first baptismal service taking place in August 2021. Since then 3:16 Church has over doubled in size, The church has grown by 26% in new membership, baptized 16 new believers, restarted small group ministry and youth ministry and on 9/11/2022 voted as a church to change it's name from Northridge Church of Abbotsford to 3:16 Church.
We believe the best is yet to come!