The Chinese Christian Church of Baltimore just recently celebrated its 47th anniversary! This big milestone could not have been met without God’s sovereignty and the commitment of several brothers and sisters who faithfully served in this church for so many years. Below is a timeline of how CCCB came to be what it is today from its humble beginnings in 1972.
CCCB’s first Sunday serviced was held at the home of Rev. Chen and Mrs. Chen on August 20, 1972. After the church outgrew the parking area around Rev. Chen’s home, CCCB needed to look for a different place to meet.
In June of 1975, Sunday services moved to the Towson YMCA. After many years at the YMCA, CCCB’s growing needs and the YMCA’s desire to terminate our lease forced us to look for alternate facility.
After nine years at the YMCA, Sunday services moved to Calvary Baptist Church in Towson on September 2, 1984. Since we were renting from Calvary Baptist Church, the services were held in the afternoons.
Before the move to Calvary Baptist Church, CCCB submitted a contract for the building at 10012 Harford Road. Settlement for the Harford Road property was completed on November 13, 1984. It was a two-story residential building. After six months of renovations, the first service was held on May 5, 1985. This was the first building that we could call our own. Brothers and sisters prayed fervently and gave sacrificially to purchase this property.
Our beloved founding pastor, Rev. Chen passed away on May 22, 1986. After his passing, Rev. Knettler and Rev. Buettner frequently filled our pulpits during our years at Harford Road until Rev. Lin and his family came in July of 1987. We eventually out grew this facility. Under the leadership of our new Pastor Yang Kuang-Fu and co-workers, we started to look for a new facility.
After 9 years at Harford Road we temporarily moved to Cub Hill Presbyterian church. The reason for the move was that we needed more space and it also allowed us to sell the Harford Road property to finance the purchase of a new facility.
We made an offer to purchase the Cromwell Bridge property in October of 1992 but we were not successful. Mrs. Kathy Chen was instrumental in keeping the idea of purchasing this property alive and by God’s grace we signed the contract in August of 1993. It was quite a step of faith for the entire church family. God was faithful and we give all the credit to Him.
Construction of our present church started in April 1996. After 13 months of construction, we had our first worship service at 1800 Cromwell Bridge Road on June 1, 1997. Almost the entire church came out to plant trees on the first two Saturdays of May, 1997. We planted 250 trees and shrubs. Before we started planting on the first Saturday, it rained. We debated whether to call off the planting but decided to go ahead as planned because the trees were on site and people started arriving. The rain stopped and it softened the ground for us to plant. God knew what He was doing. We did not have a pastor at the time, but the church family came to serve together in unity.
The Lord answered our prayers by bringing Pastor Shen and his family to serve at our Church beginning in July of 1998.
The two-story Logos Building, an extension to the original church building, was completed in January of 2007. When we built the Logos Building, the first floor was not finished. Since then we built the stage and the dressing rooms for baptism. Movable partitions were also added which provided a room for children’s worship.
Pastor Tom Tofilon and wife, Julie, moved to Baltimore to begin serving together at CCCB. Pastor Tom became the Associate English Pastor of CCCB in September of 2014.
CCCB currently has about 250 attendees and there are current renovation plans in place to update our facilities and expand our Sanctuary capacity.
The history of CCCB points to the greatness and faithfulness of God. We also want to remember and be grateful to the brothers and sisters who had the vision for this church and the faith to trust God for the resources to finance these building projects. Some of them have gone on to be with our Heavenly Father. Some have moved away from Baltimore. But many of the brothers and sisters still remain at CCCB to this day.