OUR HISTORY
City Beautiful Church grew out of the Status young adults’ ministry at Discovery Church in south Orlando. As Status blossomed into a multi-generational community, the leaders felt the call to launch as a church plant in the heart of downtown with a blessing from the mother church. Thus City Beautiful Church opened its doors in the summer of 2012.
The first year marked by the excitement of transience and new possibilities, with our Sunday gatherings rotating through many incredible venues in the downtown area: the History Center, The Mezz, and the Church St. Ballroom, to name a few. Eventually, the community landed at SAK comedy club, and greater stability was added to the vision with a partnership that would last over a year.
The next stage in our growth required not only a space to worship on Sundays, but somewhere to call “home” all week long. After a diligent search, we landed at a building on Alden Road, just north of downtown in the bustling Lake Ivanhoe district. Along with a physical establishment of home came a spiritual call to root ourselves more deeply in God and in one another. “Family, living in heavenly reality” became our guiding light for our first year in the new space. Not only were we able to use our building for our own programs, but we were able to bless various other ministries with a physical place to operate.
The coronavirus pandemic of 2020 was for us, as for so many, a difficult time of adjustment. However, we persevered through those months through online church until we were able to start gathering again in our space. Shortly thereafter, our lease at the space on Alden Road expired, and began our next chapter at The Orlando Science Center.
The move necessitated fresh short-term vision for who our church is and how we operate. One of the major new initiatives of that time was to place new emphasis on our community groups as the backbone of our spiritual growth. Our elder board also identified three areas to focus our energy over the next five years: building up our Greenhouse kids ministry, re-establishing local and global partnerships for serving beyond the church walls, and finding a new permanent home. In the next couple years we were able to expand the role of kids & family pastor, and we built relationship with Orlando Children’s Church and One More Child locally, and two ministries in Peru globally.
What’s next for City Beautiful Church? We want to find a new space where we can gather, not only on Sundays for worship, but for various events and workshops and a reclamation of that vision of a church building being utilized throughout the week as a place of gathering. Join us in prayer for this new endeavor, and if you feel so led, help us raise funds for a new building by giving here.