A Brief History of CLC
Columbia Life Church was originally named The Crossing Life Center and began public worship services in 1991. Our first home was the old Troutdale Post Office building on 2nd and Buxton in downtown Troutdale. In 1994 the name was changed to Columbia Life Center and In 1999 the original building was sold to the city of Troutdale and God miraculously provided the means to purchase our present facility. Our first worship service in this facility was held on Sunday, May 16, 1999.
In May of 1998 Pastor Jerry became the 3rd pastor of this very young church. When he came there were 12 members but by the end of his second year the membership had doubled and a strong and vibrant core group of families were established.
2006 brought even more changes as we changed our name to Columbia Life Church and we became a sovereign church affiliated with the Assemblies of God.
The Assemblies of God grew out of the Pentecostal revival, which began in the early 1900s in places such as Topeka, Kansas, and the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles. During times of prayer and Bible study, believers received spiritual experiences like those described in the book of Acts. Accompanied by “speaking in tongues,” their religious experiences were associated with the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Jewish feast of Pentecost (Acts 2), and participants in the movement were dubbed “Pentecostals.” The Pentecostal movement has grown from a handful of Bible school students in Topeka, Kansas, to an estimated 600 million in the world today.
Many participants who were baptized in the Holy Spirit during revivals and camp meetings in the early 1900s were not welcomed back to their former churches. These believers started many small churches throughout the country and communicated through publications that reported on the revivals. In 1913, a Pentecostal publication, the Word and Witness, called for the independent churches to band together for the purpose of fellowship and doctrinal unity. Other concerns for facilitating missionaries, chartering churches and forming a Bible training school were also on the agenda.
Some 300 Pentecostals met at an opera house in Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1914, and agreed to form a new fellowship of loosely knit independent churches. These churches were left with the needed autonomy to develop and govern their own local ministries, yet they were united in their message and efforts to reach the world for Christ. So began the General Council of the Assemblies of God.
Assemblies of God churches form a cooperative fellowship. As a result, the organization operates from the grass roots, allowing the local church to choose and develop ministries and facilities best suited for its local needs.
