About Trailhead

Trailhead Church is built around the idea of practicing the way of Jesus, together, in our cities and neighborhoods. We believe that to be an apprentice of Jesus is to order your life around three goals: be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and do what Jesus did. Our dream is that as we live this way, our lives, our communities, and our city, will be transformed.

Who We Are

Our Team

Grant & Cassie Jacobs

We are Grant and Cassie, the proud parents of a couple amazing kids, Daisy Mae and Wilde North. We live in Columbia Falls which happens to be in close proximity to a few of our favorite things: spectacular mountains and lakes, good coffee and beautiful friends. We have been married since 2007 and we love being outside, traveling, having long conversations over a meal with friends and trying new restaurants. Now that our kiddos have a say in things, we added going to the playground and eating ice cream as a few more of our favorite things.

Jimmy Karlin

Community Care Pastor


We are Jimmy and Amanda and we have the privilege of being mom and dad to Kirsten, Beckett and Peter. Having met in school, we feel like we grew up together as people and in our relationship with Jesus, deciding early on that if relationships are going to thrive, Jesus has to be at the center of everything. That desire to follow Jesus has led us from the U.S. Navy to serving in Europe with a missions organization to putting down roots in Montana. We have a passion for giving young people a safe space to learn and grow, serving those who experience injustice and providing fitness and nutrition training to kids and their families through a local non-profit called Steps of Justice.

Paige Carter

Administrative Assistant


We are Paige and Matt, Florida natives with a heart to raise our littles (Adeline Grace and Boone Dale) in a family dedicated to the Lord and loving all things in the great outdoors. The Carter home is completed by our German Wirehaired Pointer, Cricket! You can generally find us serving the local church, outside on the patio, or off playing in the mud. Side note: how is there always mud to be found?! Matt serves the community as a full-time firefighter and nurse, and we both are dedicated to raising our children to love the Lord, enjoy and steward this incredible planet we call home and value this precious time together as a family!

Matt & Kyla Praetzel


We are Matt and Kyla and we have two amazing boys, Bryson and Atlee. We have served together in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) since 2014, helping young people discover their gifts and preparing them to go out into the world to serve local churches and missionaries. We have led teams to 11 different overseas locations on 4 of the 7 continents and that has only fed our desire to serve the global church. Matt has recently launched a new ministry called Mission 91, specializing in equipping ministries to be prepared to meet emergencies. While we have served in many different capacities, our primary focus has been developing new missionaries to use their unique gifts for the benefit of the Church and to spread the Gospel in a missions context.

Matt Praetzel

Creative Director


We are Matt and Kyla and we have two amazing boys, Bryson and Atlee. We have served together in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) since 2014, helping young people discover their gifts and preparing them to go out into the world to serve local churches and missionaries. We have led teams to 11 different overseas locations on 4 of the 7 continents and that has only fed our desire to serve the global church. Matt has recently launched a new ministry called Mission 91, specializing in equipping ministries to be prepared to meet emergencies. While we have served in many different capacities, our primary focus has been developing new missionaries to use their unique gifts for the benefit of the Church and to spread the Gospel in a missions context.

Bryan & Indra Helmbrecht

Church Planting Residency Directors


We are Bryan and Indra and we have been in full-time ministry for the last twenty years, where our family has grown from just the two of us to now include our six wonderful children! Our journey has taken us from the midwest (Bryan) to Mexico (where he met Indra) to Southern California to the Dominican Republic and finally the beautiful Flathead Valley. We love spending time with people, exploring the great outdoors and seeing the world through the eyes of our children. Between following the Lord, moving and having six kids, we don’t ever anticipate being bored!


Jimmy & Amanda Karlin


We are Jimmy and Amanda and we have the privilege of being mom and dad to Kirsten, Beckett and Peter. Having met in school, we feel like we grew up together as people and in our relationship with Jesus, deciding early on that if relationships are going to thrive, Jesus has to be at the center of everything. That desire to follow Jesus has led us from the U.S. Navy to serving in Europe with a missions organization to putting down roots in Montana. We have a passion for giving young people a safe space to learn and grow, serving those who experience injustice and providing fitness and nutrition training to kids and their families through a local non-profit called Steps of Justice.

Bryan & Indra Helmbrecht


We are Bryan and Indra and we have been in full-time ministry for the last twenty years, where our family has grown from just the two of us to now include our six wonderful children! Our journey has taken us from the midwest (Bryan) to Mexico (where he met Indra) to Southern California to the Dominican Republic and finally the beautiful Flathead Valley. We love spending time with people, exploring the great outdoors and seeing the world through the eyes of our children. Between following the Lord, moving and having six kids, we don’t ever anticipate being bored!

Our Mission

            .

Trailhead Church exists to practice the way of Jesus, together in community, for the sake of others.

What does this mean?

Great question! Let's take this in pieces: 

As followers of Jesus, we believe that we are to orientate our lives around three goals:

Be with Jesus

Order your life to live in the presence of Jesus. It's answering the invitation of Jesus to abide with Him. As we spend time with Jesus, we fall more in love with him and experience the beauty of perfect love. 

Become like Jesus

As we spend time with Jesus, we are formed more and more into the image of Jesus and find ourselves becoming a person of love. 

Do what Jesus did

As we spend time with Jesus and become like him, we will become the kind of people who do the kinds of things that Jesus did. 


We are all about people having a personal relationship with Jesus, we just don’t want it to end there.

Our relationship with Jesus was never designed to be done without community and in fact will never reach its full potential without others. A big part of our journey of becoming like Jesus takes place through other people.

Jesus came to rescue people and we have the same purpose as ambassadors of Jesus.

Our apprenticeship with Jesus was never intended to end with us. Rather we apprentice under Jesus in order that we may learn how to bring hope and healing to others. Jesus came to reveal a new kingdom (Mark 1:15) that is both deeply personal and immensely relational. Jesus related this new kingdom to salt: “You’re here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth” and light: “You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world” (Matthew 5:13 & 14, MSG)

Our Essential Beliefs

  • God

    A holy (without sin), spiritual being, all knowing, everywhere present, eternally existent in three distinct personalities – God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit  – one God  (Exodus 3:14-15, John 4:24, Matthew 28:19, John 1:1-2).

  • Jesus Christ

    Jesus became “God in the flesh.” He was born through the miracle of a virgin birth, lived a sinless life, was crucified and died a physical death as atonement for our sins, and was physically resurrected from the grave (Matthew 1:18-25, 1 Corinthians 15:3-8). He will return in bodily form as Lord of the universe, to gather his followers and judge those who have rejected him (Acts 1:9-11, Hebrews 9:27-28).

  • The Holy Spirit

    Lives within those who believe in Jesus Christ as Comforter and Advocate, and helps us become more like Jesus in thought, word, actions and character (John 16:5-15).

  • Sin

    Men and women were created in the image of God but are now separated from God by sin (Romans 5:12-21).

  • Salvation

    Faith (belief and trust) in Jesus and his sacrifice on the cross is the only way to be reconciled with God (Acts 4:8-12). Salvation cannot be earned; it is offered through Jesus based on grace, not merit. What we couldn’t do for ourselves (reconcile with God), Jesus did through his death on the cross (Ephesians 2:8-9). God lovingly offers salvation to every person, and every person has the freedom to accept or reject this gift at any time (John 3:16-18). Faith requires repentance (conforming our lifestyle to Christ’s), and results in obedience. Baptism by immersion demonstrates a pledge of our willingness to live for Him (Acts 8:26-38, Romans 6:1-4).

  • The Bible

    The Bible is inspired by God, and is therefore without error or contradiction, and is the sole authority for faith and practice. All our beliefs come from the Bible (2 Timothy 3:15-16, 2 Peter 3:15-16).

  • The Church

    The Church of Jesus Christ is not limited to any one institution or denomination; it consists of all who have trusted Jesus Christ for redemption of their sins. Trailhead is therefore but one part of the greater Church (1 Corinthians 12:12-17).

The ancient church father St. Augustine offers this helpful statement on any church’s shared beliefs. The idea bound up in these few words is that there exist essential teachings within Scripture that the church must be united on if the people are to experience the life of God in the family of God. 


Additionally, the church has divided over the years time and time again over smaller disputes, for which there should be liberty within the church family to come as far as each member is able, honoring the continual process of belief that we each experience over a lifetime of walking with Jesus. The essentials are the anchors that hold us. The non-essentials are vital, extremely important, but the most loving, dignifying way to hold these teachings in the Christian Church is by liberty. 


Finally, in everything, we are a family bound together by love. Right belief, expressed pridefully, is not love. Wrong belief, permitted freely, is also not love. Right belief, championed by love, is what Jesus embodied. We, the Body of Christ, should be a living expression of the same.

“In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty.
In everything, love.”

- St. Augustine

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