history of seacoast
the beginning.
Seacoast Church began in February of 1988 with sixty-five people meeting in an apartment clubhouse. In April of the same year the first "public" meetings were held in a rented theater with a vision for reaching out to the unchurched people of the Charleston area. The dream was to build a church that would speak the language of the modern culture and encourage non-believers to investigate Christianity at their own pace, free from the traditional trappings of religion that tend to turn them away. A decision was made to approach the historical Christian truth in a decidedly contemporary, unconventional way.
1989-1999.
Over the next year and a half the growing congregation endured a hurricane and scheduling nightmares by becoming a kind of traveling "band." After using four separate buildings for worship and children’s activities, Seacoast finally settled under one roof in an elementary school. In 1989 the people rallied to buy 14 acres of property just 1⁄2 mile from Interstate 526 that connects Mt. Pleasant to North Charleston. The first auditorium was opened in November of 1991. Immediately a second service was added and then a third; Saturday evening service was started in September 1992. In 1999 additional auditorium space was added to accomodate 1350 attendees.
2002.
Space was leased in Belle Hall Center to host a video service for young adults called the Annex.
2003.
Video campuses were launched in downtown Charleston, West Ashley, Columbia and Irmo.
2004.
3 additional campuses were added in Savannah, GA; Summerville and Greenville. West Ashley moved into a beautiful new location on Savannah Hwy and Long Point began construction of the Possibilities Center, a facility to reach the next generation. Weekend attendance grew by almost 2,000 and hundreds committed their lives to Christ.
2006.
Long Point Road had the grand opening of the Possibilities Center, creating additional children and youth facilities along with 2 new venues. In addition to familylife, Long Point now offers the chapel and unFiltered services. Irmo also moved into a more permanent facility. Almost 50% of all Seacoast attenders experienced the weekend message via video at a campus.
2007.
4 additional campuses were added. During the beginning of the year we opened a campus in Greensboro, NC, and then in the fall we launched our Asheville, NC and North Charleston, SC locations. The North Charleston campus also launched the Dream Center, modeled after the Dream Center in LA. It is a place offering resources and opportunities to families in desperate need of hope. We also were able to launch our Internet campus, which gives us the ability to reach people who are unable to attend another location
2008.
2 new campuses were added. We launched a campus on James Island, SC on Easter weekend and have enjoyed watching God build His Church there for the past two years. Then in May, we launched a campus in Manning, SC. Though they now have live worship, they were the first campus to launch using both video worship as well as video teaching.
2009.
A lot happened in 2009: 548 people were baptized; 15,826 people attended our Easter services; 130,957 pounds of food were given away; 55 churches were planted through the Association of Related Churches; and over 11,200 people were ministered to through global missions! For a more detailed account of all that happened, take a look at the “2009 Year in Review”
present.
Seacoast remains committed to its original vision: to be a safe place for people to come and investigate a relationship with God through Jesus Christ and to be a healthy place for Christians to grow in their spiritual journey. We believe that God is able to do more than we can ask or imagine… the future is exciting!