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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.
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