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.  So, in 1997 the congregation moved across the street to a building with more space. The church has operated from its 4 Charles Park location ever since.

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, or CCG.)

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.