"A healthy church is one that is confident in its beliefs, secure in the love of
the God it serves and certain that part of its reason for existence is to reach those people
whose relationship with God is weak, insignificant or nonexistent."
- George Barna
Our Vision as a Body of Believers
Tearing Down Walls...Building Up People
"To break down dividing walls and restore relationships between people groups
and invest heavily into the next generation of believers."
Our Priorities
Worship...Prayer...Giving...Growing
A Brief History of Evangel
In March of 1980, Shekinah
Christian Center was started by Roger Lucas and Mike Shea as a
non-denominational church plant in the Longview/Kelso area. Evangel
Christian Fellowship was sent out by Shekinah in February 1991 to plant
another church with Jeff Hoover serving as pastor.
From the beginning, the leadership at Evangel felt like there was a
specific reason for starting this new work. There was a sense that
Evangel was to intentionally pursue relationships with other churches,
working hard to break down walls between groups who have been called to
walk in unity as the body of Christ.
For the first year, Evangel met at a local union hall on Sunday
mornings and Sunday nights. Sunday nights were devoted to bringing in
local pastors and leaders, exposing the people at ECF to different
styles and perspectives of "the church." We were then invited to share
a facility with a church that was then called Church of the Risen
Savior, meeting in the evenings at 5:00 PM. This unique meeting time
allowed us to visit and support other local area churches on Sunday
mornings, putting feet to our vision of working to bridge the gap
between church groups.
In August of 1994, Evangel was invited to move to New Covenant
Christian Fellowship which met on Commerce Ave. We met together as one
group for 4 months, after which time we moved back to our familiar 5:00
PM time slot and shared the facility with New Covenant for the next 3
years.
To try to make room for the growing numbers of small children that were
attending ECF and the need for more classroom space, in September 1997,
we had the opportunity to meet at First Christian Church on Kessler
Blvd. Meeting in this very traditional church was an honor, as well as
a challenge for this contemporary group. We continued to meet for our
main service at 5:00 PM on Sundays and added a mid-week service on
Tuesday evenings.
During the winter of 1998, Evangel had the opportunity to lease the
building that had previously housed Marauder’s Bingo on 11th Ave.
We spent the next 18-months cleaning and remodeling the facility to
accommodate a meeting area, classrooms, office space and a coffeehouse.
The work on the building was finished in June of 2001 and is busy
almost every night of the week, providing a place to gather together,
encourage each other, and reach out to the community with the love of
Jesus.
Evangel Christian Fellowship
1335 11th Avenue
Longview, WA 98632
Driving Directions:
From I-5 Northbound take exit 36 to Longview
Turn right on 7th Ave then left on Hudson St.
Turn right on 11th and Evangel will be on the left.