Home Again: Pastor Returns to Hometown, Rebuilds Relationships, Sees Church Revitalized

Herb Helsel, 43, and wife Courtney grew up in Lake City, Michigan, and four years ago returned to become pastors of The Grove AG church which has since grown from 13 to 575 in weekly attendance. 

“Herb and Courtney are unbelievable at reaching people,” says Michigan Ministry Network superintendent Aaron Hlavin. “They are good at connecting people with each other and connecting people with God … They have captured the hearts of a small community in a way that is contagious. When you are there, there is joy in the house.”

The Helsels both graduated from Lake City High School where Herb was senior class president. Like other locals, he grew up working in logging and Christmas tree farming, major industries in that area.

Courtney was already walking with the Lord, but Herb gave his life to the Lord at an AG church in Marquette, located within Michigan’s upper peninsula, where they had moved so Herb could drive a food delivery truck route for Gordon Foods. He held that job for 18 years, 15 of them as a driver.

“I studied my heart out in the truck,” Helsel says, recalling hours behind the wheel listening to the Bible.

He and Courtney became kids’ pastors at North Iron Church in Ishpeming and soon were drawing 120 kids in three services. Feeling a call to ministry, Helsel also took courses through Global University.  

He then started having dreams about people he had grown up with in Lake City getting baptized and coming to know the Lord.

He felt it was the work of the Holy Spirit, stating that the Lord has always impressed things upon him while he sleeps.

One night on the Mackinac Bridge, the Lord confronted him with a crossroads to decide whether or not he would do what the Lord had asked him to do. The Helsels felt led to sell their house and pay off all their debt. Some months later they received a call from the pastor of the AG church in Lake City who they had never met but who had heard about Helsel from a mutual friend.

“The Lord has been impressing you on my heart,” the woman said. “I had a dream about you and your family.”

That led the Helsels with their five children to move back to Lake City and into the parsonage, and to lead The Grove with virtually no salary while Helsel was still working for Gordon Foods.

He preached his first message in January 2021 and rapid growth started later that year when they decided to hold a Christmas Eve service while all other churches canceled theirs due to weather. It drew 330 people. Growth continued and the church has since moved into a larger building and is planning to expand. It draws people from nearby cities such as Cadillac as well.

“I cannot believe it — I get pumped,” says Helsel with characteristic enthusiasm. “It’s like a homecoming. Everybody knows who I am, and I’ve always been a nice guy, I just didn’t know the Lord [back then]. People are starving for the Lord and for hope.”

Helsel has made water baptisms and the baptism in the Holy Spirit central to the church’s ministry. Services are celebratory, his preaching passionate, he says.

“Every Sunday is resurrection Sunday for me,” he explains. “I go into every week like it’s the World Series.”

Furthermore, “some of those faces I had dreams about, we’ve baptized since,” he states.

One person in particular has met the Lord and now helps with Royal Rangers.

“I’ve been shocked most days I wake up,” says Helsel of the church’s expanded impact. “I’m in awe at how much pastoral work there is to be done, loving people. They want something beside what they’ve been used to their whole lives. It’s like missions work even though it’s your hometown.”

He preaches on topics which he perceives the community needs. Recently, he gave a series on the subject of spiritual warfare.

“I’m in tune with what’s going on in the community and can see where Jesus fits into the situation they’re going through,” he says.

His mother bakes treats for attendees on Sunday mornings, and people have the opportunity to meet Jesus in every service.

“I think God is using someone that was them, that they could relate to,” Helsel says of his hometown friends.

To other ministers sensing a call to seemingly small places, he counsels, “Don’t be afraid to take a risk. So many pastors are looking for that big church to hire them. There are so many churches that need restored, need vision and need revitalized. I’m convinced the Lord is calling people places; they’ve just got to listen.”

Joel Kilpatrick

Joel Kilpatrick is a writer living in Southern California who has authored or ghostwritten dozens of books. Kilpatrick, who served as associate editor of the Pentecostal Evangel in the 1990s, is a credentialed Assemblies of God minister.