Our Story

St Johns Church has a rich history in the community. St Johns Church as we know it today emerged in November 2020 as the result of a merger between two different congregations.

Funny story (but true)…

February 2020 the leadership at St Johns Wesleyan Church and St Johns Christian Church announced to the congregations of a vision to merge these two churches into a new church. The plan that was presented had a timeline of 13 weeks allowing time for the congregations to meet with one another and to ask questions about the impact of a merger. This was going to culminate with a congregational vote in May 2020. Believe it or not, March 15, 2020 was the first scheduled “town hall” meeting bringing both congregations together. That was the first Sunday everyone suspended meeting in person.

The churches ended up doing combined online services for much of 2020 and were able to finally do a congregational vote-by-mail in October 2020. Both churches had overwhelming support for the merge and Sunday, November 29, 2020 the first week of Advent, was the first official service of St Johns Church.

While St Johns Church is a relatively new church, the history of its two parent churches is rich. St Johns Christian Church has its origins in 1909 while the St Johns Wesleyan Church began in 1923.

Today St Johns Church is an independent church, however we acknowledge the benefit of being a part of historic faith traditions. Our two different denominational faith traditions are The Wesleyan Church and The Christian Church/Church of Christ.

St Johns Church continues to be in a collegial relationship with both denominational faith traditions for the purpose of encouraging fellowship and including St Johns Church in various ministries and the historic faith traditions as well as helping to inform our doctrine and practice. St Johns Church is also commited to working together with The Wesleyan Church and The Christian Church/Church of Christ in fulfilling the Great Commission of Jesus Christ by helping to establish new disciples and build new churches in our community as well as the broader Pacific Northwest.