Who We Are

Who We Are

We believe that the Church is not a building, a place, or even a service.  The Church is a people, brought together by God in love.  We come together to experience true community, to worship God, to be shaped by His wisdom and love, and then to be sent out to share the love and life-changing power of Jesus Christ with a broken world.  We believe that our particular church has been called and empowered by God to pursue a vision of abundant ministry.  Jesus says in John 10:10 that he came to give life in abundance.   In Jesus, we have abundant life now and eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.  And so, we believe that God wants us to reach and connect people in His abundant love, grow people in His abundant grace, and unleash followers of Christ in abundant service.  And, by the way, we believe that God wants joy and laughter in His Church!  Jesus says that He wants His joy to be in us, and for our joy to be complete.  Doing life together and serving Jesus together is the greatest, most complete joy we know.

What We Believe

Deer Lake Church seeks to be a people of faith, hope, and love in our community, for our community.  We are a people humbly learning to love Jesus well and who live to make Him known in the world.  Our theological positions are rooted in Wesleyan Theological Tradition.  This means we trace the basis of our core theological convictions through the work and teachings of John and Charles Wesley, 18th Century Anglican Priests whose lives and work launched a movement that would eventually be known as "Methodists".  If you'd like to know more distinctives about Wesleyan theology, you can learn that here

Our History

Our church was founded in 1986 and chartered in 1987 under the name Killearn Lakes United Methodist Church.  The first service was held in the living room of our parsonage.  Shortly after, we moved to Plantation Center, a local strip-mall, and occupied four of the store fronts.    In 1992 we built our first facility, a multi-purpose building, at 8013 Deerlake Road East in the center of Killearn Lakes Plantation.  We held our first service on August 23, 1992 and officially consecrated the new facility on September 27, 1992.  We completed our second building phase in the fall of 1997 and our third in 2015. 


The year 2006 marked the beginning of our Journey to Abundance, a five year vision God had for our church to move into abundant ministry.   Abundant ministry is reaching, discipling and deploying people in the Love of Jesus.


On March 1, 2009 we renamed our church.  As the Church, planted in and called to this mission field in Tallahassee, we desired a name that captured and communicated the essence of who God has called us to be as a people.  We believe that God has given us the name, Deer Lake United Methodist Church.  Psalm 42:1 says, "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God." 


We are a church for real people who struggle and search.  We are a people of faith, who as we gather in true community find hope and healing and joy in the presence of God.  And, we are a church who are both fully satisfied by the living water that Jesus offers, and yet still hungry and thirsty for more of God and His Kingdom.


The people of Deer Lake made the decision to transition out of the UMC as of June 1st, 2023 and reimagine ourselves as a new church, simply named, Deer Lake Church.  We currently hold no denominational affiliation, but plan to take the summer and fall of 2023 to pray, seek God's heart for our community, and together discern the next steps God has for us as a church family.  In the meantime we will do what we've always done: follow Jesus and do our best to be a church in the community, for the community.  If you have questions about who we are and where we're headed, feel free to reach out to Pastor Bobby

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