Shadow Mountain Community Church is an

evangelical Christian Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...

megachurch A megachurch is a church with an unusually large membership that also offers a variety of educational and social activities, usually Protestant or Evangelical. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research defines a megachurch as any Protestant C ...

affiliated with the

Southern Baptist Convention The Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) is a Christian denomination based in the United States. It is the world's largest Baptist denomination, and the largest Protestant and second-largest Christian denomination in the United States. The wor ...

and located in

El Cajon, California El Cajon ( , ; Spanish: El Cajón, meaning "the box") is a city in San Diego County, California, United States, east of downtown San Diego. The city takes its name from Rancho El Cajón, which was in turn named for the box-like shape of the va ...

, a city in

San Diego county San Diego County (), officially the County of San Diego, is a county in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,298,634, making it California's second-most populous county and the fi ...

. The church celebrated its

centennial {{other uses, Centennial (disambiguation), Centenary (disambiguation) A centennial, or centenary in British English, is a 100th anniversary or otherwise relates to a century, a period of 100 years. Notable events Notable centennial events at a ...

in 2009.

History

The first meeting was held in 1909. The church was founded in

North Park, San Diego North Park is a neighborhood in San Diego, California, United States, as well as a larger "community" as defined by the City of San Diego for planning purposes.https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/1_introduction_np_november.pdf, p.2 The n ...

in 1912 as Scott Memorial Baptist Church, in memory of U.S. Army chaplain

Winfield Scott Winfield Scott (June 13, 1786May 29, 1866) was an American military commander and political candidate. He served as a general in the United States Army from 1814 to 1861, taking part in the War of 1812, the Mexican–American War, the early s ...

. As SMBC grew, Scott Memorial East was established in El Cajon on Greenfield Drive. It was later renamed Shadow Mountain Community Church. The original Scott Memorial Baptist Church in North Park became Scott Memorial Community Church, then Grace Community Church. For 25 years the church was led by senior pastor and best-selling author

Tim LaHaye Timothy Francis LaHaye (April 27, 1926 – July 25, 2016) was an American Baptist evangelical Christian Minister of religion, minister who wrote more than 85 books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the ''Left Behind (series), Left Behind ...

David Jeremiah David Jeremiah is an American evangelical Christian author, founder of Turning Point Radio and Television Ministries and senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church, a Southern Baptist megachurch in El Cajon, California, a suburb of San D ...

succeeded LaHaye as senior pastor in 1981; in 1982 he launched an international radio and television ministry called Turning Point Ministry. In 2014, Shadow Mountain Church purchased the former Grace Community Church in San Diego's North Park neighborhood and made it into an auxiliary campus named North Park Campus. As of December 2022 the church has eleven auxiliary campuses: one in El Cajon, two in San Diego, one in

Encinitas Encinitas (Spanish for "Small Oaks") is a beach city in the North County area of San Diego County, California. Located within Southern California, it is approximately north of San Diego, between Solana Beach and Carlsbad, and about south o ...

, one in

Chula Vista Chula Vista (; ) is the second-largest city in the San Diego metropolitan area, the seventh largest city in Southern California, the fifteenth largest city in the state of California, and the 78th-largest city in the United States. The popul ...

, and one in

Alpine Alpine may refer to any mountainous region. It may also refer to: Places Europe * Alps, a European mountain range ** Alpine states, which overlap with the European range Australia * Alpine, New South Wales, a Northern Village * Alpine National Pa ...

Ministries

The main ministry of Shadow Mountain Community Church is their Sunday service, regularly bringing in over 10,000 people a week. Another large ministry is "Mountain High Kids," the children's ministry. It is run by about a dozen full-time employees, and about 100 volunteers. Other ministries for minors include the "CREW" middle school ministry and "The Gathering" high school ministry. The church also has multiple foreign-language ministries, including a Spanish-speaking ministry, a Filipino congregation, an Iraqi ministry, and several others. Pastor Dr. David Jeremiah records his sermons for his radio program called ''Turning Point."

References

External links

*{{Official website, www.shadowmountain.org Baptist churches in California Southern Baptist Convention churches Evangelical megachurches in the United States Megachurches in California California culture Christian organizations established in 1909 Churches in San Diego County, California El Cajon, California