History:

The Christian Church of Santa Clara had it's beginning in 1954, starting in the home of Leonard Perkins, a student of San Jose Bible College. On Easter Sunday, 1955 the small congregation of 15 met as a church for it's first Worship Service. Leonard Perkins served as the part time minister. The infant Church received guidance from the Board of Elders of Los Gatos Christian Church. In late 1955, the church met in a store right next to the Cinderella Motel on El Camino Real, where the Bank of America is now located. Leola Bragg owned the motel, as an early member of the church; she invited them to meet there.

In 1960 the present property was purchased, strictly by faith, there were two homes on the land; one was remodeled into a sanctuary which is now the "Fellowship Hall", the other was used as the minister's residence. In August 1964 the church called Dewey Kooy to be the first full-time minister. On the 14th of that month ground breaking was held for our present sanctuary and classrooms. Later the Kennedy house and property were purchased to make room for a parking lot that was finally paved in 1995. Meanwhile another house around the corner on Barkley Avenue was purchased for the minister's residence, which brings us up to the present on our facilities. We are working now on updating our property to help us carry out our mission well into this new century.

Over the years this church has garnered and cultivated a reputation for missionary outreach: Supporting twelve missions around the world and in the US Sending out members on encouragement junkets to Kenya, Chile, the Ukraine, Russia, India, and Mexico. In 1982 a challenge was accepted to establish a bread ministry. Four days a week, day old bakery items and over ordered groceries are gathered from local Safeway stores to hand out to any family or individual that desires to come and pick it up. We are currently working on finding a place to gather and sort (both weather specific and according to size) donated clothing to send out to mission fields around the world.

The root motivation for this congregation is the call for all Christians to put aside creeds and denominational names and unify simply under the Bible and it's teachings. We want to say Bible things in Bible ways. All seven ministers that have served here over the last forty plus years have approached the ministry with that in mind. Three emphases have guided the work here: 1) mission outreach (evident in the paragraph above), 2) Unity (with God, in the congregation, and with the other Churches in the community), and 3) Biblical accuracy (accepting that what the Bible says it means).