Saturday Mornings on Mullen Road
On Mullen Road SE in Lacey, Washington, the Lacey Seventh-day Adventist Church keeps a steady Saturday rhythm: Sabbath School at 9:30 am, worship at 11:00 am, and a wider ministry that reaches from Olympia Christian School, which the church helps support, to mission trips across the Atlantic. The congregation's stated mission is to share the love of God that brings hope, healing, and peace through Jesus Christ, and that single sentence runs through everything from the children's Sabbath School rooms to the rebuilding project in Mostar, Bosnia.
Visitors are easy to spot on a Saturday morning: cars pulling in before 9:30, families greeting one another in the lobby, classrooms filling with every age group from cradle roll to adult, and the main sanctuary opening for worship at eleven. The greeters at the church door, the welcome line at the bottom of every sermon description, and the simple Come As You Are heading all carry the same message.
A Sabbath Rhythm: Bible Study, Then Worship
Saturday is the Sabbath for Seventh-day Adventists, and the Lacey church's weekend follows that cadence closely. The morning begins at 9:30 am with Sabbath School, a sixty-five-minute interactive Bible study with classes for every age group from birth through adults. Class materials follow the standardized Adventist quarterly lesson, which the church provides a direct link to for anyone who wants to follow along at home or prepare ahead of time.
Worship follows at 11:00 am and runs until about 12:15 pm. Each week the congregation gathers for music, prayer, the gathering of offerings, and the preaching of God's Word - messages the church describes as practical and relevant to everyday life. Music leans on the long Adventist hymn tradition, with congregational singing and special music from soloists and small ensembles. Preaching rotates between Pastor Sven Frantzen and a stable of guest speakers and elders including Elder Doug Bing, Eric Griffith, Isolette Fio, Edwin Meelhuysen, Alister Hunt, Dr. Tim Madding and Dr. Jim Stevens.
Both services are streamed live on the church's YouTube channel and Facebook page, so members who are traveling, sick, or simply away from Lacey can keep up with the same message each week. Sermon recordings stay available afterward through the church's online catalog, which goes back several years and includes topical series such as Pillars of Adventism, taught by Pastor Jason Canfield in 2022.
Come As You Are
The Lacey church takes its welcome seriously. The words Come As You Are head the visitor section. Christ never turned anyone away for any reason, and the church seeks to do the same. Visitors are invited to ask questions, ask the pastors to pray with them, and simply find a place to sit and listen.
There is no formal dress code; the range runs from jeans and casual weekend wear to dresses and jackets. Children are part of the main service on most Saturdays, and on the first Saturday of each month they are invited out for a Children's Church service of their own. Safety is taken seriously: every volunteer who works with kids is screened, and the church publishes its safety policy for any family that wants to read it.
Children, Youth and Olympia Christian School
Raising up the next generation is one of the most visible pieces of Lacey SDA's ministry, and the church runs a full pipeline from birth through the early teen years.
- Olympia Christian School. The church is a proud supporter of OCS, a kindergarten through eighth-grade school operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church to provide a spiritually oriented education. The school's philosophy holds that true education develops the spiritual, mental, and physical powers of each student, and that belief in a Creator God is fundamental. Students are encouraged to develop a personal relationship with God and others, master academic basics, value labor, and cultivate fitness, mental ability and moral purity.
- Children's Sabbath School. During the 9:30 am Sabbath School hour, children are divided into age-appropriate classes from birth through youth, all following the same quarterly lesson the adults use.
- Children's Church. On the first Saturday of every month, children are invited out of the main sanctuary for a service of their own, with songs, activities, lessons, games and crafts.
- Pathfinders. The Lacey Swordbearers Pathfinder Club meets most Tuesdays at 6:00 pm in Tuttle Hall at the church. Pathfinders is a worldwide Christian scouting organization for youth in grades 5 and up, directed by Ricky Gabel.
- South Sound Adventurers Club. For the pre-K through 4th-grade crowd, the Adventurers Club meets about once a month in the gym at Olympia Christian School. Its mission is to serve an intercultural community of children and their parents and to help families grow as followers of Jesus through worship, awards, activities and field trips. Directors David and Erin Miller run the program.
God's Closet is a smaller but tangible outreach: twice a year, the church collects new and gently used children's clothing and opens its doors to families in the community for a SHOP-DAY. There is a one-dollar entry fee, and once inside, the clothes are free.
Reaching Beyond Lacey
While Lacey SDA's ministry is rooted on Mullen Road, its mission footprint reaches much further out. Two ongoing mission trips dominate the calendar.
In Mostar, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the church partners with a vision to transform a war-torn church building into a community hub - a place that will serve as a church, meeting space, art and language school, and a daily support center for the local community, with a hostel to foster connection and generate sustainable income. The project is led locally by Pastor Božidar Mihajlović, and Lacey members interested in joining or supporting the trip can contact the church office. An information packet and the trip flyer are available as downloadable PDFs.
In the United Kingdom, the church has a parallel project at Stanborough Secondary School, the only Seventh-day Adventist boarding school in the UK, located on the historic Stanborough Park in Watford. Closed since the COVID-19 pandemic, the school is in need of refurbishment: new floor tiles, fresh paint, repaired windows, bathroom updates and new cupboard doors across the first and second floor west wings. The current trip window runs in early to mid August. Food and lodging are provided on the ground; participants arrange their own flights. Guided tours of London and Oxford are built into the trip.
What Seventh-day Adventists Believe
The Lacey church holds to mainstream Seventh-day Adventist teachings summarized on its Basic Beliefs page. Adventists are Christians who believe in one God made up of three persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit - and in a loving Creator who made the world as an act of personal care. Salvation centers on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who rose again on the third day and ascended to heaven, leaving the Holy Spirit as Comforter and Counselor. The church looks forward to the literal Second Coming of Christ, when He will come as King of Kings and take His people to live with Him forever in the renewed earth.
The church also teaches that God is concerned with the whole of human life - the way people live, eat, speak, think, treat each other, and care for the world around them. Among the practices that flow out of those convictions are a literal seventh-day Sabbath kept from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown, an emphasis on health and temperance, and a long history of running schools, hospitals, and the Adventist Development and Relief Agency, which serves in more than 130 countries.
Locally, the congregation distills those doctrines into a simple vision: share the love of God that brings hope, healing, and peace through Jesus Christ.
RESTORE: A Vision for Daily Life
The Lacey church's stated vision is to live out seven RESTORE goals each day until Jesus returns:
- Restore a loving and consecrated relationship with Jesus
- Empower God's Remnant People with the baptism of the Holy Spirit
- Share the Gospel of Christ and His Second Advent
- Teach the Three Angels' Message with Power
- Organize members to serve as Christ served
- Reveal God's True Character to all
- Evangelize Lacey, the South Sound and the World
The Three Angels' Message, drawn from Revelation 14, is one of the more distinctive Adventist teachings, and Pastor Frantzen has preached through it as part of his online series on the Pillars of Adventism.
Sermons, Livestreams and Staying Connected
Beyond the Saturday morning services, Lacey SDA keeps an active online footprint. The church's YouTube channel hosts the full back catalog of sermons, while the Facebook page mirrors the livestream for those who prefer to follow along there. A sermon-search page on the church's own site organizes recordings by preacher, with searchable text and downloadable PDFs of the discussion guides that accompany recent series (such as the Fight or Flight small-group guides for adults and parents).
Pastor Frantzen also writes a short blog called Pastor's Update, posted on the church's site, where he shares video and written updates on the progress of Lacey Church ministries. Visitors can follow along online.
Getting Involved
There are several open doors for newcomers and regular attenders who want to serve. A Greeting Ministry is always looking for warm, friendly people to welcome at the door. A Prayer Team receives prayer requests from people in need and prays for them. The church also runs a short survey to help match members with ministries they feel called to, from children's ministries to the mission trips.
For giving, donations are handled securely through Adventist Giving, the denominational online platform, with the church's own giving page linked from the main menu.
Visiting Lacey SDA
The church sits on Mullen Road SE in Lacey, easily reached from I-5, with a map link and turn-by-turn directions on the contact page. Sabbath School begins at 9:30 am on Saturday, and worship follows at 11:00 am. The mailing address for correspondence is P.O. Box 3543, Lacey, WA 98509-3543, and the church office can be reached at 360-459-5163. Visitors who want to talk with the pastor directly can reach Pastor Sven Frantzen at sven.frantzen@waconference.org or 682-521-5322.
From its Saturday Sabbath rhythm to its children's ministries, mission trips, and a steady stream of online teaching, Lacey Seventh-day Adventist Church keeps a simple center: a congregation on Mullen Road gathered to share the love of God that brings hope, healing, and peace through Jesus Christ.