About Us
We want to welcome
you to
Impact Houston Church of Christ!
During the last half of 1986, three preachers
from the Houston area having "mid-life" crises"
and without portfolio began to plan for a new ministry to the
city of Houston. They were without experience in this area,
without existing models among Churches of Christ and without
support. On the second Sunday morning of 1987, sixty-seven very
apprehensive participants gathered at Lee Elementary School
in the near North Side close to downtown for the first worship
service. We sang, we worshipped, we preached and we shared a
meal. People came from the suburbs, from other parts of Houston
and from shelters close by. We have never had a smaller crowd
and the format remains unchanged.
During the next ten years we would average one
move per year as we outgrew facilities or were displaced by
unhappy landlords or those complaining from nearby neighborhoods.
Our present property was purchased in 1992 and the Distribution
Center was constructed in 1993. Our present Bible Study Building
was purchased in 1999 having been leased for several years.
We met in city parks, YMCA, a declining housing project close
to downtown and a warehouse on Washington Ave. We rented offices
on Studemont for several years and started our distribution
center in a small store front on White Oak Dr. We met in our
present building for about three years awaiting funding for
conversion from a warehouse to a church building. No heating,
no air conditioning and the crowds were huge!!
In early 2000 we moved into our newly refurbished
facilities and were able to occupy the Education Building three
months later, just in time for our summer program.
The Staff has changed in addition with only
two leaving to re-enter mission work in Central and South America
and those changes were planned before they came. We have had
hundreds of Summer Interns who came for various lengths of time,
some staying for several years. Numbers into the thousands have
come for Work Camp in early June. Hundreds of homes have been
painted by these students. Groups large and small come during
the year to work in service projects and to learn of urban ministry.
Former Impact workers have begun urban ministries in other parts
of this country, influenced by their stays in Houston. Our outreach
to youth during the summer brings groups from around the country
to assist, requires fifty interns and serves 450 children.
What a ride! And our work is only at the "teenage"
stage. We are looking forward to the future with God being our
beacon.
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