About Us
First Christian Church of Tallahassee is a group of varied people worshipping and serving Jesus Christ. We are college students, recent graduates, working families with children, teenagers, and retirees. We’re a Restoration Movement church with common core beliefs. We invite you to join us on this journey of faith. While we look to the future, we’re aware of the history that precedes us.
In 1926, six families in Tallahassee sought help from the Florida Missionary Society to establish a church in Florida’s state capitol. In the spring of 1931, land at the corner of Park Avenue and Bronough Street was purchased for the new church. The first service was held at Leon High School on Sunday, May 27, 1934. The church would continue to organize as the Capital Christian Church at Leon High School until the building at Park and Bronough was built. The first part of the church building was completed in early 1935.
During World War II, the church served not only the students and faculty at Florida State College for Women (which would become Florida State University) but also servicemen who were stationed at Dale Mabry Field. Coffee and doughnuts were often served to the troops traveling through Tallahassee by train. In 1944, forty-four members of the congregation were serving in the Armed Forces. After World War II, the church was renamed First Christian Church of Tallahassee.
In the summer of 1969, the church expanded its relationship with the students of Florida State University, by starting the Seminole Christian Student Center, which was also called Campus House. First Christian Church is still involved with Christian Campus Fellowship, as it is now called. Christian Campus Fellowship occupies three buildings half a block from the Wescott Fountain at FSU.
In the summer of 1973, the complex at Park and Bronough was sold. It was later purchased by the government for use as a U.S. Post Office. Although the entrance is now on College Avenue, this post office is known as Park Avenue Station, and the ceiling reflects its former role as a church.
The members of the church began meeting in Florida High School, which was then on FSU’s campus, while a new building was constructed on High Road. On the property was a house owned by the son of a rancher who owned 100 acres of cow pasture around the area. That house has been used as our minister’s home and currently houses the church office. The church moved into the facilities on High Road on Palm Sunday in 1977.
For our fiftieth anniversary, our church produced a book detailing the church’s history, Travelling the High Road. We celebrated our seventy-fifth anniversary in May 2009. For our seventy-fifth anniversary, we compiled an updated history of our church (PDF, 4.33 MB).
Today, we continue to worship the Lord on High Road. The cow pasture is gone, and our closest neighbors are mostly college students in apartment complexes. We seek not only to praise Jesus Christ here on High Road, but also to do His work here in Tallahassee, throughout Florida and the United States, and also to the remotest corners of the world.
Our Purpose
First Christian Church exists to put forth the Word of God, to save the lost, equip the saved, and be a light to the world.
