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C3 is a growing network of people committed to becoming more like Jesus and helping others discover and follow him. | |
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History
Chicagoland Community Church was founded May 28th, 2000 when Jon and Alana Pennington moved to Chicago to plant a church reaching out to urban post-moderns. After a significant amount of fundraising Jon began working as a full-time church planter on July 7th 2000. A mission team from Kansas helped them in surveying during the Searchlight event of the Chicago Metro Baptist Association Strategic Focus Cities. Jon and Alana began some preliminary survey work, demographic studies, and core group building. They worked to start a small group in their home in the Six Corners neighborhood, and a book discussion group at the BORDERS in the Lakeview neighborhood. Many of their early contacts are still in some way involved in the church today. By December of 2000 Uptown Baptist Church had agreed to be C3's parent church, Jon and Alana had completed their assessments and basic training and had begun to assemble a core group. Their first two members were Tara Truesdale, an employee with the city association, and Jason Benefield, a member of Northside Baptist. Shawn Clark, a friend of Jon & Alana's from Texas moved to Chicago to help out as outreach coordinator early in January of 2001. Also that month, they began officing and meeting at the 836 W Aldine location in partnership with Northside Baptist Church. The core group began to grow significantly, adding in particular Mike Richter and Sandra Roman from Uptown Baptist Church who still serve with C3 today. In March of 2001 C3 had some of its first mission teams from Texas and Ohio. During this their time of minsitry Tessa Rhyne began attending, and gave them some great contacts with the alternative subcultures. They began preparing in earnest to launch public outreach and worship serices. By April, they had four fledgling context groups. The first Connection Worship Service was April 15th 2001, and the first Crossroads Outreach Concert was April 28th 2001. From those first services, Glen Wallace and Kevin Peterson became involved in the church. They are still serving today helping with maintenance, outreach and operations. In June 2001 we began sharing the facility with the POINT church when Northside closed down. That summer we had many mission teams, and our first summer missionaries from Mississippi: Billie, Brianna, and Savannah. That fall, Ashley Hodges, a Moody student, began to work with our church as our Fellowship Director. Though we saw many visitors and a number of conversions since our inception things really began to get exciting in 2002. Tessa and Shawn unfortunately moved away, and Jason and Tara began working with other churches. Providentially, however, we had a significant influx of North Park University Students (lead by Jeff Keele and Ashlee Lien), and several other future leaders began to get involved. This included Melinda Croes who works on our newsletter, Melanie Massey who works with our compassion ministries, and Sam Carpenter who is a graphic design artist responsible for many of our fliers and posters. By April we had eight fledgling context groups and around 20 in stable attendance. Over the summer of 2002 we had additional mission teams, a new partnership with the Center for Student Missions, and another summer missionary from Mississippi (Darrius Boyd). We were able to admister 5 adult baptisms, and saw our worship service continue to grow. As of the fall of 2002 we have an average of 40 in attendance and are beginning to envision a children's ministry. We have lost our connection with the North Park campus, but we are seeing a large number of Moody students become involved, and we are beginning plans to reach out on the DePaul University campus. We have a goal of 16 context groups by next April. We are also brining Ashley Hodges on staff as our Outreach and Campus Ministry Pastor.
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