KNOW OUR STORY ::

The CCPC used to be known as Baptist Collegiate Ministry in Boston. Prior to 2003, the team was made up of a small group of on-campus ministers trying to maintain ministries on the major campuses in Boston. The impact was small but significant, and the struggle to have recognized religious groups on private campuses was huge. A leadership change in 2003 brought us to a natural time of evaluation and prayer. We began to ask ourselves some pretty tough questions: Are we really being effective in our current strategy? If we continue the way we are going, what impact will it have? What is the bigger need that isn’t being met? And most importantly, What do we need to be doing to further the Kingdom of God in Boston? We polled students, we prayed, we sought counsel, we prayed some more, and an overwhelming burden hit us in the process.

As we stepped back to evaluate on the “big picture” level, we were struck with the fact that although there are 250,000+ college students at 70+ colleges and universities in the Boston Metro area, there are NOT a great number of relevant, vibrant churches reaching out specifically to those students and young adults. Couple that with the reality that church involvement among students declines severely during their college years, and you get a pretty bleak picture of the future Church. And at that point, we knew what we had to do. God birthed in us an entirely new, completely different strategy. We shifted our focus from the campus to the church, and formed the Collegiate Church Planting Community.

Now, don’t get us wrong. We still love the campus. We still pursue ministry opportunities on the campus. If we stop doing that, we might as well stop trying to reach this city. But we looked at what our brothers and sisters from other collegiate ministry organizations were doing on the campus and thought, “Why reinvent the wheel?” Why try to start ministries on campuses where there is already a Christ-centered campus ministry alive and well? We are so thankful for the other organizations in Boston that are committed to reaching students on the campus—we support them, pray for them, and partner with them whenever we can.

But for us, we knew that God was leading us into the world of collegiate church planting. It was such an unfamiliar road, one with its share of speed bumps and roadblocks, but God has been incredibly (and not surprisingly) faithful to us as we have tried to follow Him with every step. We have such a desire to instill in college students and young adults a love for the Church, both the local and global Body of Christ. That desire comes from the knowledge of a few important truths. We know how our own church experiences (or lack thereof) have shaped us, both positively and negatively. We know that students make huge decisions during college that shape the rest of their lives, and we want one of those decisions to be a commitment to the local and global Church. And we know that Jesus loved and gave his life for the Church. If He put that much importance on it, we want to follow His example.

As you go through our website, you’ll learn about the communities of faith that have been started since we embarked on this journey. And hopefully the things we value the most will be obvious—things like community, discipleship, worship, truth and excellence. Take a look around and if you have any questions about us, our roots, our churches or our God, please feel free to contact us at info@ccpcboston.org.

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