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History |
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The Early Years In 1986, a handful of people met to share a dream of establishing a contemporary Christian church on the near north side of Chicago. They envisioned a vibrant church alive with music, drama and multimedia arts that would engage the Lincoln Park and near north Chicago community with the relevant and meaningful message about the truth and grace of God available through His Son Jesus Christ. They saw a church that would be an authentic community, a place of comfort, compassion and care, and a place where the power of the Gospel would transform lives. They also envisioned a church that would extend outside itself to provide real care, mercy and service for people in need in the communities where we live. With the blessing of Moody Memorial Church, this handful of about 50 people in their 20’s and 30’s held the first worship services of Park Community Church in the summer of 1987. They first met in the Jane Addams Hull House near Belmont. By the end of 1987, Park Community Church had outgrown that location and began holding weekly services at Francis Parker School at Clark and Webster in Chicago’s near north Lincoln Park community. Small groups began forming where people could meet weekly to learn truth from the Bible, grow in their spiritual journey, develop life-long friendships, and do life together.
Community From the beginning, Park has sought to be a Biblical and vibrant local church focused on celebrating the transforming grace of Jesus Christ while ministering with relevance to believers and unchurched people. We want to provide a safe environment in which each person has an opportunity to experience the person and work of Jesus Christ for themselves. Over the years, the truth of the Gospel message has transformed thousands of lives and God continues to bless Park Community Church as it grows and thrives on the north side of Chicago. Today, Park Community Church ministers to about 1,100 people in our three Sunday services and has nearly 700 people in small groups that meet weekly to study God’s word and wrestle with difficult life issues in a safe environment that is characterized by care, compassion, authentic communication and accountability. The City Park Community Church also aims to impact the world, using the power of the Gospel, through renewal of the city, intentional global missions opportunities and the natural mobility and transience of people in the city. We seek to play a part in the renewal of the city because we know that Chicago is a national and international center of influence in business, education, media, culture and the arts. Our commitment and our prayer is for the city – that God would use Park Community Church to bring the people of Chicago into a life-transforming understanding of the love and grace available in Jesus Christ. Our prayer also is that God would use Park Community Church and other churches to raise up leaders and go out and share this message of love and grace in a dynamic and life-transforming way. We believe that God desires to bring spiritual renewal to the city of Chicago, and we believe Park Community Church is a part of that plan. To that end, Park has numerous ministries that provide care and service for the church body as well as the community at large, from discipleship classes to family ministries, from supporting homeless shelters to prison ministries, to short-term missions trips to inner-city youth tutoring. The World As we work with other churches to transform the city, the Gospel’s impact will be felt throughout the world. We can see that God is working in all parts of the world and we want to facilitate global missions trips and support missionaries called from our church body. It is our prayer that people throughout the world will be impacted by the gospel. Park is currently involved with missionaries and mission trips in more than 11 countries. While we are committed as a body to investing our lives in community in the city, we also recognize that we have a unique opportunity to share the power of the Gospel with others who will have a future impact for the kingdom in other cities. We know that people will not stay at Park for their whole lives. Job promotions, relationships and other things will call people to a new beginning in other cities around the US and the world. At Park, we see this as a unique calling – to train and equip some of our folks who will minister for the Kingdom in other places – making Park a launching pad for God’s next generation of devoted followers both within the global marketplace and ministry. Our goal is that we would use Chicago as a base to share the gospel like Paul “…so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord.” We invite you to join us and prayerfully come alongside the work that God is doing here at Park Community Church. |
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