CHURCH HISTORY

In the spring of 2003, my family and I were ready to pack our belongings and head down to start a church in Northern Virginia. I had just finished six years of ministry at Emmanuel Church as a college and young adult pastor but I had a sense that it was time for me and my family to move forward to the next phase of our spiritual journey. The only problem was I wasn’t really sure what God had in store for me but I knew I wanted to be a part of what God was doing in our generation. The week that I was going to make my departure official, I was asked to reconsider leaving and was asked to plant a church through the English Congregation of Emmanuel Church in Philadelphia. After many conversations and much prayer, I sensed that this was an open door from God so my family and I decided to stay and see how God was going to lead us.

Immediately from the beginning, God began to bring people who had a passion and vision for a new kind of church. About 10 of us started to meet together to dream about the kind of church we wanted to see. We knew that being gospel-centered, creating diversity, authenticity, community, outreach, mercy and missions were important to us and these became the cornerstones in which our church was planted. They also became tangible reminders as we incorporated them into our mission statement. We wanted to be a church that would make an impact on our culture and in this generation.

Our first service was held in August 2003 at Clearview Bala Theater. After meeting for about half a year, we officially launched on Easter Sunday, April 10, 2004, and became known as City Line Church. During our first year, we enjoyed the close-knit community that God had formed. We really felt like the early church in the book of Acts. Since then God has been bringing people from all different backgrounds to our church. It has been great being part of this church plant. We are becoming more and more ethnically diverse and God is adding to our numbers weekly. We definitely sense that God is doing something and we are so excited to be a part of it.