The history of Central Community Church (CCC) is an extremely exciting and wonderful story. It’s a story of God’s faithfulness to the people He created and a story about Him continually seeking out His people in order to establish an intimate relationship with them.
In the early 1980’s Northwest Church (our mother church) started up the Highway City Thrift Store (now located at 5472 W. Shaw) just east of its current location. With Northwest’s financial backing, donations and people power the store was able to concentrate on meeting the material needs of the Highway City community. After a couple of years, some folks from Northwest began to minister to the children in the area. A makeshift AWANA program was started. Working through the children first, they began to address the spiritual needs of the community. As the children grew older a ministry for youth was developed. This evolved into Allies for the Lord (AFL). Eventually, around 1992, adults in the area began to express the desire for Bible teaching and fellowship. An older church building, located at 5230 N. Market Street, was rented for this purpose. There were a couple of failed attempts to establishing a congregation. But a couple (Hugh and Ione Bay) serving out there in their retirement felt called to give it a shot. Their prayers and efforts helped to develop a consistent fellowship group and soon Highway City Community Church became a missions church of Northwest. Soon after this a portable was leased to create room and to meet the needs of AWANA, Sunday School and AFL.
In June of 1995 Northwest Church was faced with the great difficulty of finding a replacement for Hugh and Ione. Hugh had suffered a severe stroke. Northwest assigned a interim pastor to maintain the ministry. Over the next several months God began to unfold a vision that would radically change the vision and purpose of the Highway City Community Church. This community of believers would no longer be a mission church, but would begin the process of becoming a self-sufficient, officially recognized church. Jän Van Oosten, the pastor of New Covenant Community Church, came along side the lead pastor and offered invaluable experience, advice, encouragement in mentoring the lead pastor.
This pastor was also required to raise his support (the church’s monthly offerings were approximately $250). Northwest and New Covenant provided the “lion’s” share of this support with a dozen other “friends of the ministry” being responsible for raising the support in just 45 days! Any financial assistance needed by the church and it’s ministries would be supplied through the Thrift Store. A worship pastor, also having to raise his support, was added to the staff and was in place on January 1, 1996. In that month, before the 35 folks in attendance, the vision to expand the scope and purpose of the church was preached. In April of 1996, the first two people to accept Christ came forward at the end of the Easter service. In addition, 28 people were baptized that year.
In January of 1997, the church name was changed to reflect the expanded vision. With Jim Westgate providing great guidance, CCC began focused on being purposeful in becoming a cross-cultural church. CCC would reach across racial, socio-economic, gender, age and any other “barriers” to show the love of Christ. Central Community Church had matured spiritually and financially (monthly offerings had reached $1,500) to take the prayerfully bold step to plant in the Central High East Cafeteria.
With a new vision and purpose, March 30, 1997 began the new era in ministry. 45 adults made the faith move and trusted God to meet the financial needs of renting the new facilities. CCC was now a tenant to the school district it was called to serve. The move to the new (at that time) Central High East campus was made in order to reach the whole district with the message of salvation found in the birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
The first year was extremely tough and the vision was difficult for many to take on. Attendance was only around 75 adults and few people had come to Christ. It was one thing to be evangelistic, but quite another to be cross-cultural, interracial and holistic at the same time. In January of 1998, a sermons series on racial reconciliation led to the public repentance of a majority of the congregation. And this opened the gates to heaven.
By December of 1998, CCC was averaging 125 adults and the weekly offerings were approximately $1,200. A men’s and women’s ministry had developed, a full worship team was in place, and the first “101” class was attended by 58 people. CCC owes a great deal of thanks to this initial group of members. Their example in accepting their responsibility before God, their willingness to be held accountable in carrying out the responsibility, and the sacrifice necessary to carry God’s will out is why CCC exists today.
It was in early 2000 it seemed the Lord was calling us to reoccupy Highway City. Soon after prayer began CCC was approached about purchasing an existing church facility across from an elementary school. While there was some discouragement when the process fell through CCC held fast to the overall vision and the hope to coming back to Highway City.
The 2001 year began another new phase in the ministry of CCC. God presented us with an incredible opportunity to gain five buildings and seven additional acres of land. Northwest had already given 2.86 acres one plot over from the existing church. It was obvious the only way for this to happen was for God to deliver a miracle of dollars. In addition, the people of CCC would have to step up their faith and make some financial sacrifices as well. Through a two-month process we continued to wait for God to show us how we would find $700,000. The amount needed and the statistical evidence said CCC could reasonably expect to generate $200,000 in commitments. We had qualified for a $400,000 loan, but would be strapped to pay this kind of mortgage. Just before Easter, Northwest decided that they would give CCC $350,000 in the form of matching funds! Despite the statistical analysis, on the night of our “Imagine…Believe…Embrace” banquet, it was announced that the commitments equaled $359,543! An incredible celebration spontaneously broke out. It was such a God “thing” that the pastor of the church being sold decided to contribute $10,000 to the cause! On June 14th of 2002 escrow closed and on Father’s Day, we held the first services with over 250 adults in attendance.
Soon after moving into the facilities, a park was constructed. AWANA doubled (to 50) from the previous year and is averaging close to 80 in 2002-2003. An after-school Homework Helpers ministry takes care of up to 80 children on Tuesday afternoon. CCC had it’s first Vacation Bible School in the summer of 2002 with over 130 children signed up and 80+ adults/teens serving the Lord. The youth ministry is growing, a young adult ministry is in place, Celebrate Recovery began in 2002, and the women had their first retreat with over 60 participants. Adults Sunday School is taking place and children’s Sunday School has fantastic curriculum which is exciting the teachers and the kids!
2003 was a year that continued to see people come to Christ and become baptized. Over 650 people came on the grounds to celebrate the baptism of 21 people at the end of the 40 Days of Purpose campaign.
In 2004 the youth ministry split into distinct groups of middle school and high school. Both ministries became stronger and three young people were brought on as youth pastors in training. All three had “grown up” in the CCC ministries and were well acquainted with the vision and ministry philosophy.
2005 was not exactly a banner year for our ministries but a process was put in place to revitalize and strengthen the overall health of the church. An adult education process was developed and implementation began at the end of 2005. New ministries were developed and three new preachers entered the pulpit from the congregation. Besides the vocational staff there are now four people from the congregation who are part of the preaching team.
All this said we must consider the two most important results of God’s work in and through CCC. From April of 1996 through February of 2006, 454 people had accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior and 326 people had been baptized. When it is all said and done, these are the two most important measuring sticks for the significance of CCC’s ministry.
Thank you for participating in the legacy of Central Community Church. |
