A Basic History of Our Church
The College Church of Christ began in 1964. Back then, Fresno was a much smaller city. As the city began to grow, folks at the Palm Avenue Church of Christ (close to Belmont) saw the importance of starting a new church in Fresno’s expansion northward. They sent a group of members to start the College Church near the campuses of Fresno State University and Hoover High School. Bullard Avenue was a simple two-lane road in those days, and farmland surrounded the new church building. In the years that followed, neighborhoods sprung up, and the city built new schools such as Ahwahnee Middle School and Eaton Elementary.
As the community grew, so did the College Church. From an initial average attendance in the 300s, the church grew to 800 in weekly services by the 1980s. For many years, it was one of the largest Churches of Christ on the West Coast.
Churches of Christ comprise the eleventh-largest Christian denomination in the United States. Pepperdine University is our flagship institution on the West Coast. Other liberal-arts universities associated with Churches of Christ include Abilene Christian University, Lipscomb University and Harding University. The largest and strongest congregations are in places like Texas, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Alabama. In Texas, for example, Churches of Christ are the fifth-largest “denomination” with over 350,000 people.
Over the years, the College Church has hosted many large gatherings, conferences and regional events. We’ve enjoyed prominent guest speakers from across the country such as CNN’s Top Ten Hero for 2016 Becca Stevens, bestselling author Dan Kimball and many others church leaders, pastors and professors. The College Church has also partnered with global outreach efforts and compassionate projects in Colombia, Kenya, Mexico, Ukraine, China, Haiti, Switzerland and beyond.
In recent decades, the neighborhood and the church have both gone through dramatic changes. The surrounding community is much more diverse, and the College Church struggled to keep up with the changing world. And the church’s aging infrastructure was a growing burden for our faith community. Many North American churches like ours face growing challenges as fewer people attend church services. These challenges call for churches like ours to reinvent ourselves and to rediscover our calling.
In 2023, our leaders made a momentous decision to sell our aging campus and move. We had a desire to do more than physically relocate. We wanted a process that would energize our church and launch us into a new season of outreach, discipleship and growth.
The proceeds from the sale of our old campus allowed us to buy a beautiful piece of property in one of Fresno’s most densely populated neighborhoods, Fresno Council District 7, at the intersection of Fresno and Shields. By investing the proceeds into the new property, we now have a beautiful, modern facility that can serve us and the community for years to come. And our church is committed to engaging our neighbors to build Christ-centered community.
We look forward to partnering with all kinds of good people in the years to come.