History

Life Church White Rock, originally known as the White Rock Evangelistic Tabernacle, began meeting in a small community hall under the leadership of retired missionaries Ted and Mary Johnston. Verne and Marge Wilson began pastoring the church in 1967 and were joined by John and Lyza Clarke in 1972. The church moved across the street in 1981 to our present facility and was officially renamed White Rock Christian Fellowship. John and Lyza served as Verne and Marge's associate pastors for eighteen years and served as senior pastor after Verne's death in 1991. Jeff Young was ordained as Senior Pastor in 2006 and the church was renamed as White Rock LifeChurch.

Over the years the pastoral staff has included Mel and Betty Cooley, Dave and Tomana McTaggart, Ryoichi and Lydia Takeda, Mike and Ev Schroeder, and Burt and Marilyn Dumerton. Three of these couples now pastor churches planted from White Rock Christian Fellowship. From outside of our church we have received influential guidance from a number of dedicated men in the past including Bob Birch, Ern Baxter, Les Pritchard and more recently, Dick Iverson, of Ministers Fellowship International. (Our pastors receive their pastoral covering from MFI (for more information go to: www.mfi-online.org ). These men have enriched the leadership and congregation with their wisdom and insight in many areas.

The first home fellowship groups began in the 70's, a radical concept at the time, and these groups eventually developed into life groups - a central focus of church life, discipleship, and pastoral care.

In the early 1980's the church began a Christian school with only four teenagers. White Rock Christian Academy has since become recognized as an institution promoting spiritual, academic, musical and athletic excellence with an enrollment of over three hundred students.

Marvin and Ilene Fast, long-term missionaries in Japan, made White Rock their home base and were instrumental in building the missions program. The church continues to support a number of missionary works with whom we have ongoing relationships.

The heart of the church is to be a community that will touch and link all the generations together and to that end we have vital ministries aimed at men, women, children, youth and young adults, and seniors.