Our Story

In 1958, a group of Christians from the North Shore Christian Church in Jacksonville, FL, who had moved to the south side of Jacksonville and who were encouraged by the brothers and sisters at North Shore, began meeting in the Englewood area of town. Those early founding members of the congregation were also assisted by The Plea Foundation. The Englewood Christian Church met for the first time on September 7, 1958.  They met in the Englewood Demonstration Building at the corner of Englewood Avenue and DeKalb Street, the same location currently occupied by Interstate 95.  A church planter, Delmar Debault, supported by the few Florida Christian Churches that were in existence at the time, preached and worked with the group for the agreed time period of one year.

On September 1, 1959, the church hired their first full time preacher, Fred Smith, Jr., who came from Illinois with his wife, Madonna. Under their thirty-seven years of leadership, until Fred retired on September 1, 1996, the Englewood congregation made a Kingdom impact on Florida and around the world. Englewood has helped start thirteen churches, the North Florida Christian Service Camp, and spear-headed the beginning of Johnson University Florida (previously known as Central Florida Bible College and Florida Christian College) . The current preacher, Pete Ramsey, is only the third full time preacher in the history of the church, beginning his tenure in December 2017.

Part of the heritage of our faith community is the relationship with our physical community.  We began as a neighborhood church, experienced our greatest times of growth and ministry impact as a neighborhood church and have a desire to continue our role as a neighborhood church.  Some churches get really, really big and move around while others stay small and don’t move at all.

Our hope and desire is to continue to grow by making an impact, not only in our local community but all over Jacksonville, as we move forward and aim to become a true multicultural, multilingual church with worship services occurring simultaneously in several different languages. Our first effort to reach the Hispanic community has begun with the recent hiring of our multicultural pastor, Brent Linn. Our name reflects our desire: Englewood – a great neighborhood made up of amazing people from a variety of beautiful cultures; Christian – faithful believers rooted in Jesus Christ; Church – the physical form of the “body of Christ,” creating a community with the desire to be the hands and feet of Jesus to all who spend time with us.  We hope you might want to belong to this part of the Kingdom.