Our History

It all started when…

The first Christ’s Church service was held September 27, 1992, at The Egg, Albany’s iconic performing arts center at the Empire State Plaza.  In the first four months of Christ’s Church existence, services were held at eight different locations within the plaza complex, including the Legislative Hearing Room and outside with the fountains as a backdrop. Attendance at those early services averaged about 90 worshipers.

In January 1993, services were moved to Crossgates Restaurant, located on Washington Avenue Extension behind the Pine Bush Firehouse. They met there weekly for 14 months, one service per week because that was all the time the restaurant could spare. Attendance steadily grew to about 120 per service.

In March 1994 the church moved to Charles Park, a small, struggling office park that straddled the Albany and Guilderland town lines. The original accommodations were tight and within two years the church had again outgrown its space.  In 1997 the congregation moved across the street to a building with more space at 4 Charles Park.

Soon after the move, leadership decided it was time to expand beyond the physical walls of the church. In the years ahead Christ’s Church helped plant churches in Binghamton, Poughkeepsie and Nashua, NH. In 2001, Journey’s Crossings in Gaithersburg, MD became the first church to spin off of Christ’s Church with about two dozen congregants relocating there. In 2012, Christ Church’s youth pastor Jon Hentrich fulfilled a calling and launched Christ’s Church Albany. (The original Christ’s Church is now known as Christ’s Church Guilderland.)

Through the years the physical layout of CCG underwent several transformations but none bigger than in 2018 when the worship space and offices were reconfigured to accommodate the Guilderland Food Pantry, which has been serving Guilderland since 1979. However, they needed more space and a first floor location to continue serving the food insecure in our community.

In 2019 the world experienced the global pandemic of Covid-19, and wanting to be obedient to the scriptural mandate in Romans 13:1-7, the leadership obeyed government mandates to shut down in-person services for the duration of the pandemic. This proved to be disastrous for every church that did so, and Christ's Church was no exception. Coming out of the pandemic, hindsight has proven the government's mandates to be an unconstitutional overreach (20A87 Roman Catholic Diocese of Brooklyn v. Cuomo (11/25/2020) that further violated the scriptural mandate of Hebrews 10:24-25 and the example of the early believers in Acts 4:19.  

Pastor Brian stepped aside in March of 2022, and a lot of friends left for "greener pastures." The remnant that remained continued meeting and praying, and in August of 2022, God called Pastor Mike Scott to the area. Michael had also been a pastoral intern at the church from 1995 to 2000, before moving on to serve in Syracuse and Rochester, NY. Michael came back and served as an interim pastor from August 2022 until August 2024, with elders and Pastor Ben Siemens from New Hampshire also preaching some Sundays, until God gave the green light and Michael was able to come on full time with his wife.  

During this time, it also became evident the Church needed to relocate from its old warehouse to a fresh beginning across the street at 52 Corporate Circle, suite 215, in a place we are affectionately calling "The Upper Room." The Upper Room is not only located on the second floor (accessible by elevator and stairs), bit is also symbolic because the first church was born out of the Upper Room in Acts 2. 

This is a new beginning for us, and we hope you will join us in Sundays at 10am