Keystone Community Church had it's unofficial start in 1991 when Pastor Steve O'Dell moved with his wife Anne and their son Tyler into house number 567 on Eastlook Drive in Saline, Michigan.  They moved to Saline with one goal in mind, to establish a new kind of church in the community that would focus on meeting the needs of individuals and families who had given up on the traditional way of "doing church."

A door to door community survey conducted that very summer revealed that many people in the community had been raised attending church and even considered themselves members of a particular denomination.  It was also revealed that these people did not view involvement as a high priority, because as they saw it; the music was outdated, the messages were boring, irrelevant to their every day lives, there was too much of a focus on money, and too many people who called themselves Christians failed to consistently practice what they claimed to believe.  It was decided that these were issues worth addressing and barriers that could be overcome by taking a new approach and building a new kind of church community.

By the O'Dell's 4th week in Saline, they began holding "Kids Klubs" a backyard vacation Bible School program.  55 children attended the club that week.  Hoping to build a core group from the parents of the children who had attended the club, Pastor Steve visited each of their homes and gave them the book "The Key To Your Child's Heart" along with an invitation to attend a small group.  Only two people showed up and they, being involved in a church already, were not really interested in becoming a part of this new church.  They came simply out of pity for this young pastor trying to start a church.

It was now time for Plan B.  There was no Plan B, so they made it up as they went along.  It was decided that if a church was going to be built, it would have to begin with Sunday morning services.  In November and the first week of December, 1991, large ads began appearing in The Saline Reporter, trumpeting the arrival of a new church in town.  10,000 brochures were sent by direct mail and about 2,000 computerized telemarketing calls were made and over one hundred 30-second radio advertising spots were purchased on WCM (a local Christian radio station).  The Saline Middle School auditorium was rented with the hope that 300 seats would be enough to squeeze everybody in.  They were all set to offer the community a very unique Sunday morning service called Sunday Morning Discovery designed to help people discover that they matter to God.

At 10 minutes to 10:00 (the service starting time) no one had shown up.  If you have ever attended Keystone you will know that some things haven't changed a whole lot in 10 years.  By service time, twenty people had arrived and before the service ended there was a small crowd of 65 including; Pastor Steve's grandparents, a cousin of Anne's, friends of the family and an 8 member singing group from Indiana Wesleyan University (who were paid to be there), as well as a number of other relatives who came to encourage the O'Dell's.  But they persevered and by the next Sunday, the church grew to 37.  These people became the core group that would become Keystone Community Church .

In the first year, the church launched a children's ministry, Growth Groups (small group ministry), a worship team and Power Surge (student ministry).  We were determined, as much as possible, to be a full service church.  The first year looked like the Steve and Annie show, especially the first few months.  But in spite of that, at the end of the first year of ministry we were averaging 47 for Sunday Morning Discovery.

Toward the end of the first year, it became apparent that we had a space problem -- TOO MUCH SPACE! So the search was on to find a facility that would fit the need.  We discovered that there was space available in the old Assemblies of God church building, located behind the Dairy Queen.  A sublease was negotiated and we moved in.  But there was a catch.  We had no seats.  Some money was borrowed from our sponsoring organization and we found a good deal on padded, stacking chairs.  Shortly after that, one man in the congregation donated his car to sell and these extra funds helped pay off the loan in 6 months

The second year we involved many new people in the work of the ministry.  One couple became our youth sponsors and began working with 8 teens.  They also began a college and career group that began to draw a consistent group of 6-8 students.  In the Spring we tried a different kind of outreach to Saline by offering a community Easter Egg Hunt (an event we still hold each spring).  The 200 kids and their parents that showed up blew us away.  The Saline Reporter gave us front-page coverage.  And that's when large numbers of people began beating a path to Keystone...NOT!  But we continued to see small and steady growth providing us with even more supportive and dedicated members to add to the core group.

During our third year, the Keystone Leadership Team took a step of faith and began to pursue the possibility of bringing on another staff member.  The staff member they found was Pastor Ken Gilmore , who was hired to run the Young Adult Ministry.  Once he arrived, however, the clause in his contract that reads "and anything else the Sr.  Pastor deems necessary" kicked in and he became; office administrator, children’s pastor and minister of music as well.  His first Sunday at Keystone was also our first Sunday in our 3rd facility.  The lease was up on the old Assemblies of God building so we moved to an even smaller facility -- the karate room in the Saline Recreation Complex.  It was small, but we enjoyed telling people that Keystone moved into a new 5 million dollar facility and that we had the world's largest baptismal that doubled during the week as an Olympic size swimming pool for the community.  A convenient and somewhat appropriate motto was hanging on the wall of the karate room for their class.  We unofficially adopted it as a motto for the church: "Expect nothing, prepare for anything."

Although we are a church that reaches out to people from all church and non-church backgrounds, we are affiliated with the Wesleyan Church International.  They are the sponsoring organization that provided the finances to bring Keystone into being.  In November of 1994, we officially became a fully established Wesleyan Church receiving 14 individuals as Charter Covenant Members.  It was also at that time that we had an opportunity to buy a building of our own on Monroe Street .  After taking a look, we decided it was too small and voted instead to begin looking for land.  We set a limit of $125,000 for up to 10 acres of land.

The 4th year we began our Forward in Faith campaign in an effort to begin a building and land fund so that we would be ready, when and if any property became available.  We were able to raise over $30,000 towards this fund.  Beyond the financial gains, we also saw an increase in our ability to offer a wide variety of ministries and programs.  Our women's ministry took off with an ever-increasing number of events and Bible studies.  Our youth ministry doubled in size.  We began a men's Bible study.  We also outgrew the karate room.  In September we'd come full circle as we moved back into the Saline Middle School auditorium.  Attendance surged over the 100 mark for the first time that year and we once again added a great deal of dedicated and supportive members to our congregation.

While we were still celebrating hitting the 100 mark, we had the excitement knocked out of us when we found out that several key families were being transferred out of the area.  In spite of adding several new families we actually registered a decline in average attendance that year.

The next summer construction repairs at the Middle School forced us into our 4th location, Pleasant Ridge Elementary.  The congregation took it in stride and actually discovered that the smaller facility fit us better.  That fall we hit our first major hurdle, a hurdle of transition.  Up to this point Keystone had been Pastor Steve's church but many things were happening.  We had found a piece of property we were looking into buying for a future church facility.  We had added several new families; our children's and music ministries were taking major development strides; and suddenly people wanted to take ownership in this exciting new church.  People were saying this isn't just Steve's church, this is our church.  This was both an exciting and tumultuous time for the church.  The growth of the ministry continued but the most important growth that occurred was the growth God caused in the hearts of the Pastor and people.  One of the unfortunate aspects of this time was our realization that we were not ready for a building project.  As much as we wanted to be in our own facility we discovered that it was more a wish on our part than it was part of God's will.

During our first year at Pleasant Ridge attendance grew to an average of 112.  It was also at this time that we added another staff member to the team.  Pastor Ken's job description changed, moving him into a position to work with our Discipleship ministry, which left us with a need to hire a new Youth Pastor.  Pastor Adam Lipscomb was brought on board with his new bride Christy.  This marked the first time that we were able to hire a staff member strictly to run the youth ministry.

During the year of 1999 we hit the 140 mark in attendance.  Now we were beginning to outgrow Pleasant Ridge.  The building was big enough to hold us, but the parking lot was not.  I guess people like to drive to church and elementary schools just are not built with large parking lots! At Easter we asked Community Education (the department in charge of renting school facilities) if we could move back to the Middle School - FOR THE THIRD TIME! We moved back to the Middle School and attendance began once again to climb.  We grew to an average of 175 with a high attendance at our children's Christmas musical of 345 (not surprisingly, since Pastor Steve didn't preach - ha ha).

During the fall of 2000 we were not only growing, but also looking ahead to what the next step would be if we were to outgrow the Middle School.  We prayerfully took our first step back into a building campaign and began to search for land.  Our search quickly yielded a 7.5 acre parcel of land on Waterworks Rd.   that was available.  We studied the land, prayed some more and decided it was time to put our feet down.

In January of 2000 we purchased 7.5 acres of land for our new ministry facility at 3375 Waterworks Road .  With a $50,000 matching grant from our sponsoring organization and another $125,000 matching gift from a generous but anonymous donor in the congregation, we were challenged to raise 80,000 toward the purchase of this 7.5-acre parcel.  $80,000 given by the congregation would enable the church to pay cash for the land at closing.  After being challenged to pray and ask God what He would have each family give - "above and beyond" their regular weekly giving, a special offering was scheduled on January 30th, 2000 during our Sunday Morning Discovery service.  When the money was counted we realized God had performed a miracle.  Nearly $115,000 had been given.  Not only had God provided the resources for us to purchase the land with cash, but there was also enough left over to begin designing the ministry facility with the architect and engineers.  The excitement level at Keystone was off the charts!

Although we were all filled with anticipation for what was to come over the next few years, we also had some sadness as we said goodbye to Pastor Adam Lipscomb.  Adam's work with the youth ministry helped establish a strong core group of teens and parents that would eventually become a foundation for the growth of this ministry in the future.  Christy's work with the Women's Ministry Bible studies and Global Ministry Team is still having an impact today.  They were both great assets to our church and we thank God for bringing them to us.

While we searched for another youth pastor, we also began planning for our first ministry facility.  We surveyed the congregation and ministry leaders and then put those ideas down on paper and came up with a great building.  So great that we could never afford to build it!  So we prayed some more, set out our priorities and developed a plan that would bend us without breaking us.  We held a banquet in November of 2000 to cast a vision for the building campaign and to ask the congregation for their support of the project.  Once again the people of Keystone pulled together and we witnessed another miracle, as God provided the finances to get the building started.

Later that same fall we hired Jess Peacock to be our new youth pastor.  He came to us from North Carolina , although he was originally from Ohio with his wife Pam and their two children in tow.  Jess' energetic style and passion for teens was contagious.  Within his first few months the youth group was growing by leaps and bounds.  Part of Jess' vision for the youth ministry was the development of a youth center where the kids could gather for worship, concerts, food and fun.  That vision began to become a reality when we rented a facility that would later become known as the PowerHouse.  Things were definitely moving at warp speed.  Oh, the highest attended Sunday for the year was once again our Children's Christmas Musical.  What a surprise..............NOT!

As we entered 2001 we experienced continued growth.  The average attendance pushed through the 200 mark and we actually were seeing averages of 225-250 throughout the spring.  For Easter, we presented "The Choice", a modern musical/drama/passion play written by Pastor Ken Gilmore and Mary Kennedy.  We had over 700 people attend this event and although that is something worth shouting about there is something even more impressive.  Nearly 80 different individuals from the Keystone family banded together to help make "The Choice" a reality.  That's over 40% of the congregation, involved in one service! To say that we were thrilled would be an understatement.  Because of its success "The Choice" is now going to become an annual event.  Hopefully we'll see you next Easter!

As we headed into the Fall of 2001, we again faced some changes.  Pastor Jess resigned from his position at Keystone and so we began searching for another youth pastor.  During his brief time with us, he helped us catch a vision for what a thriving youth ministry could look like in Saline.  Jess' creative influence has changed the face of our ministry and broadened our horizons.  He will be missed!  An executive youth committee was formed to ensure that the youth ministry maintained it's vitality as we searched for a youth pastor.

During the fall we watched our building slowly makes its way out of the ground.  There is nothing more exciting to watch than paint drying, when that paint is drying on the walls of your new ministry facility.  By March, 2002, the building was near completion and we were anxious to move in.  March also brought us our second year of performing "The Choice" for Easter.  Although the script had changed a little, the size of the crowd remained nearly the same.  The week after Easter we held a special "Sneak Preview" Grand Opening service for our church family.  What an inspiring service as we traveled from the High School to our new ministry facility at 3375 Saline-Waterworks Rd.

On April 14th, 2002, Keystone Community Church officially opened their new doors to the community.  Attendance was phenomenal as people came to celebrate the Grand Opening.  Following the grand opening weekend we began a new ministry schedule.  We began holding Celebrations, a service designed to meet the needs of believers, at 9:00 a.m. and Sunday Morning Discovery, a service designed to meet the needs of seekers at 10:30 a.m.  The average attendance for the spring was about 250 people.

During the summer of 2002, we had at least one new family visiting every week (and sometimes up to 4 new families).  That August, we hired Pastor Dave O'Vell to work with the Youth Ministry at Keystone.  He and his wife Amy plugged right in and even though Dave is a big Penn State fan, we allowed him to join the team.

In 2003 Keystone was once again feeling some growing pains and plans were put in motion to add on to our “new” facility.  Construction was set to begin as soon as the funds were made available.

Not only did we make plans for additional building space, we also made additions to our staff.  DeeDee Rhoades came on staff as our part-time Ministry Administrator.  Following 9 years of dedicated service as a volunteer administrator for many of our ministries, we asked DeeDee to step on board as a staff member and really whip us into shape.  If there is a question about our ministry organization, DeeDee will either have the answer or know who to contact to get it.

Also in 2003 Lynn Quick became the first staff member whose focus was devoted to building of our children’s ministry.  Lynn did a great job of guiding this ministry in her part-time position.  Part-time ministry position is a code word for full-time work at half-time pay.  She left the staff in 2005 to pursue new ministry options but left Keystone with a dedicated children’s ministry team that was and is one of Keystone’s greatest resources.

After a round of interviews in the spring and summer of 2005, we welcomed Mike Giannotti to Keystone.  Mike is now the full time Children’s Ministry Director and within his first nine months of service took a great children’s ministry program and made it even better, expanding his team, the number of kids and expanding our ability to not just provide child-care to infants and toddlers but to actually help teach, even these young minds, about the love of Christ.

January 2006 brought about another significant chapter in the history of Keystone.  On January 29^th, 2006, Pastor Steve O’Dell informed the congregation of his decision to resign his position as Senior Pastor.  After almost 15 years of ministry in our community, Pastor Steve was feeling lead to take the next step that God had for him in ministry, but that this step was not going to be taken at Keystone.  On March 19^th, over 500 people from the community and from Keystone’s past and present, gathered at the new Saline High School auditorium to say a fond farewell to the entire O’Dell family and to thank them for their years of dedicated service to Keystone and our community at large.

The next Sunday, March 23^rd, 2006, the membership of Keystone community church voted unanimously to elect Pastor Ken Gilmore as the next Senior Pastor of Keystone.  Pastor Ken has been with us since August 1994 and brings not only his experience at Keystone to this position, but also a deep love for the people of our community and a vision to move our ministry into the next chapter of our story.

The history of Keystone has obviously had its ups and downs.  Our goal with this page is not to candy coat our history and only give the highlights, but to show you the reality of Keystone, who we are, and show how far we've come.  We do not offer perfection, but what we do offer is transparency and sincerity.  We are not here to put on a show, but to show the truth.  Hopefully you can join us as we make history in the years to come!