The Community Church of Wilmette

History of the Church and Our Mission

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Originally known as the Wilmette Baptist Church, our church community was started on January 10, 1913 with just seven families gathering together in a Wilmette living room. The seeds of a new church had been planted, and by the time Spring had sprung the community had begun to sprout right along with the flowers. On the sixth of April the first official worship service was held at a local club. It did not take very long for word to spread that a new church was in town. The first Sunday school classes that June had sixty-six children in attendance. Clearly, they needed a place where they could freely worship God, teach classes, and serve the needs of the people. On November 13, 1921, their vision was set in stone and mortar. A reporter for The Lake Shore News said it well: "a great service of worship celebrating the beginning of the regular use of the building at Wilmette and Forest Avenues" was held to commemorate the fruition of the vision God had given them. Rev. Francis C. Stifler's message that day was on the theme, "Making the Most of What We Have." During the Great Depression and World War II under the leadership of Rev. Dr. George Allison the church leaned into its calling to be "A Church that Cares." After the crash of Wall Street in 1934, despite operating at only 50% of its former budget, the church decided to allocate 20% of its total expenditures to benevolence. Even in the hardest and bleakest of times, our church has remembered Jesus' greatest commandment that we must love God and love our neighbor as much as ourselves. ​

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Since the church’s founding one hundred and twelve years ago, there are things that have changed through the years. The church has been served by different pastors who brought to the pulpit a wide variety of ministerial gifts, life lessons, pastoral styles, relational dynamics, and theological perspectives: Rev. B. Frank Taber (1914-1917), Rev. Francis Stifler (1917-1928), Rev. Dr. George Allison (1928-1949), Rev. Carl Stromee (1950-1955), Rev. Milton Wilkes (1956-1964), Rev. Robert Bartlett (1965-1973), Rev. James Pike (1974-1996), Rev. Susan Lockwood (1996-1999), Rev. Scott Weisser (1999-2004), Rev. Dr. David Gregg (2004-2006), Rev. George V. “Tripp” Hudgins III (2006-2011), Rev. Dr. Eugene Winkler (2011-2014), Rev. David Van Brakle (2014-2019), Rev. Rob Rawls (2019-2021), and Rev. Dr. Josiah T. Ewing (2022 to the Present). Like every church that has ever existed, The Community Church of Wilmette has experienced cycles of growth as well as decline, regress as well as progress, and triumphs as well as tragedies. We have not been immune from the wider sociological, existential, and cultural forces that have been impacting the state of mainstream Christian denominations across North America and Europe. However, just as the times have changed so too has our church taken measures to adapt, evolve, and change when necessary. In the 1970s, the name of the church was changed from “Wilmette Baptist Church” to “The Community Church of Wilmette” to better reflect the ecumenical nature of our calling and character. In the early 2000s, the church joined the Association of Welcoming and Affirming Baptists to show our support of the full inclusion of LGBTQ people in Christendom. In 2024, after many years of prayerful deliberation, hard work, careful planning, rigorous negotiations, and spirited discussions at a legion of church meetings, the church sold the building to Our Place, a program for teens and adults with developmental disabilities that we have supported for many years. Negotiated with tenacity as well as faith, our contract with Our Place enables the church to continue worshipping in the sanctuary and making use of the building and grounds in service to Jesus Christ and our neighbors for many years to come.

And yet, it is also the case that there are things about The Community Church of Wilmette that have held fast through the years. We are still gathering together on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. at the corner of Wilmette and Forest Avenues to worship God, learn how to be more like Jesus Christ, fellowship with each other, and organize to serve the needs of our neighbors both near and far. We are still reading and learning about new things as well as old, discussing contemporary issues as well as ancient ideas, with CCW’s monthly book club and a weekly Christian Theology class. We are still baptized in that age-old Baptist belief that salvation is a gift from God that requires adult awareness and a conscious commitment to Christ in order to fully use and appreciate it. We are still seeking to discern the will of God, the word of Jesus Christ, and the wisdom of the Holy Spirit not only as individuals but as a community “called out” of this world. We are still feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, ministering to the incarcerated, taking care of widows and orphans, and reaching out to the least, the lost, and those in need of love. One hundred and twelve years since the founding of the church, I am thankful to report that The Community Church of Wilmette is still making the most of what we have, and, just as important, we are still very much a church that cares.

Our mission is to be a Christ-centered community that embodies the biblical model of church fellowship in which, as the apostle Paul famously described it in Galatians 3:8, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for all are one in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” In this same egalitarian spirit, The Community Church of Wilmette proudly welcomes people from diverse cultural backgrounds, faith traditions, political persuasions, socioeconomic statuses, and sexual orientations. We are an interracial, interfaith, and intergenerational Christian church that is living proof that the gospel of Jesus Christ helps us to overcome barriers that the world cannot. We believe in the eternal truth of God as revealed in Jesus Christ through the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit, but this neither means that we have all the answers to life’s questions nor that we think we are better than anyone else. The truth is that when we strive for the perfection of God we fail stupendously at it, but we do not stay mired in the muck for long. When we fall down we get back up and try again for as it says in Proverbs 24:16: “the righteous falls seven times and rises anew.” While the church remains rooted in and deeply committed to the Wilmette community as a whole—supporting its local businesses, participating in its communal customs such as trick r’ treating on Halloween, and doing our part to encourage the people through hosting an annual event with food, fun, and fellowship for all ages—we have also worked tirelessly through the years to serve surrounding districts of the North Shore as well as the wider Chicagoland area. We happily include church members from all regions of the United States as well as other countries such as Canada, India, Zimbabwe, Japan, and Indonesia, and are blessed by the kaleidoscope of colors, cultures, and creeds that find a home at our communion table. Believing that “faith without works is dead” as it says in James 2:20, we are a church that seeks to live out our faith in words, thoughts, and, most important of all, deeds that make a difference in other peoples’ lives. Whether it’s feeding hungry people with A Just Harvest and our annual Thanksgiving food ministry, writing a letter to one of the 80,000-100,000 people in solitary confinement through Lifelines to Solitary, sending care packages to college and seminary students, helping people pay medical bills, raising funds for a worthy cause, or offering a helping hand to at-risk youth through our partnership with Family Matters, we are a church that takes seriously our sacred duty as the “body of Christ” to live for God and love others in the same ways that Jesus Christ lived and loved over 2,000 years ago.