Pastor Tracy Simmons - Senior Pastor

E-mail PastorTracy@c3ak.com
Phone: 907-349-4246

I’ve always considered myself to be an Alaska boy. My family arrived here in 1972 as one of the scores of military families that find themselves stationed in the Great Land. I was five years old. The only place I remember living before that is Nebraska. The things I remember most about that are giant spiders, tornadoes, the one and only time I’ve ever been stung by a bee and the truly HUGE snake that lived in our back yard. Alaska holds significantly better memories and, except for a yearlong space of insanity in the late 70’s when we went to North Carolina, I’ve been here the whole time.

I am one of those lucky ones who only went to one Elementary school (North Star), Jr. High (Romig) and one High School (West). They all served me well and I really had some great teachers. Some of them were even significant spiritual influences on me. In fact, I’ll name them... Aurelie McCain, Gary Horton, Cleveland Zachary and Cam Bohman (McCarrey). Some of the spiritual impact was just that they loved me and I knew it was a love from God. Others had far more direct impact. I am thankful for that.

After school I got my first job at the now extinct Gary King Sporting Goods. I sold shoes. Later I worked in the computer department. Actually I was the computer department most of the time. It was a pretty fun place to work for a while and I didn’t leave for 6 years.

I got into fulltime ministry in the early 90’s at the now extinct Faith Baptist Church. It was the church that I grew up in, where I met most of my best friends, where I met and married my wife and where I had some great ministry experiences. I led worship, had a choir, band, orchestra, musicals, youth ministry, preached and more. I also had some of my biggest heartbreaks there. Somewhere around the end of 1998 it all went to hell in a hand basket and I found myself wondering what was next.

I landed at the now extinct Anchorage Quality Life Center (is there a trend developing here?) with Pat Hadley. God used AQLC and the way they loved me, loved all of us really, to bring about some healing of the broken hearts. And He gave us a new place to serve and an environment where we could learn to be ourselves again. I am eternally thankful to the people from AQLC who played a part in that. MANY of them are still with us.

So now... here we are. Me and Karen, our boys Stephen and Kristofer. The journey continues, as we are all part of this new thing, Christ Community Church, Alaska.