Juneau Church of Christ
Juneau is located at the northern end of the famous “Inside Passage” in Southeast Alaska. While it is uniquely on the mainland, it feels more like an island because you can’t drive there without putting your car on a ferry. It is served by Alaska Airlines (and sometimes Delta). Juneau is Alaska’s capital city with a population of approximately 32,000. However, this population is spread out, with roughly half of the population in the downtown and Douglas Island areas to the south and the other half in the Mendenhall Valley and Auke Bay areas to the north, with smaller neighborhoods spread throughout. The Juneau Church of Christ meets in the Mendenhall Valley
but consists of members from all areas of town.
Brief History of the Juneau Congregation
The origin of the Juneau Church of Christ goes back to a missional effort of churches in Southern California back in the 1940s and has been in continuous existence ever since. The present church building was completed in the early 1970s. A parsonage followed a few years later and an additional building was added to the campus in 1991.
Size of the Congregation
The size of the congregation has fluctuated over the years, with Sunday morning attendance as high as 160 in the 1990’s to approximately 80 today. By its unique geography and climate, the community of Juneau experiences a high rate of turnover. Over the years, this congregation has influenced many other congregations “Down South” due to the number of people who have grown in faith here and who, for any number of reasons, subsequently moved to serve the Lord elsewhere. The fluctuating job markets in government, tourism, mining, and the U.S. Coast Guard factor into this higher rate of movement.
A Unique and Diverse Congregation
The Juneau Church of Christ is culturally and theologically diverse for several reasons. Our congregation shares the same cultural diversity as our city. In addition to people of European origin, Juneau has a large population of Tlingit & Haida Indigenous peoples, a large Filipino community, and many who have roots in Samoa and Tonga.
This congregation is also unique in the fact that there has always been only one congregation associated with the Churches of Christ. Over the years we have been successful at avoiding the tendency for multiple flavors of the Churches of Christ to spring up in a community, due to brothers and sisters separating over one issue or another. We recognize God’s grace in this area. So, it does mean that we have a congregation of people from a wide variety of backgrounds, traditions, influences, and theological and cultural perspectives. We continue to challenge ourselves to love and serve each other in unity with these differences. While on the surface the Juneau Church of Christ is largely similar to other mainline Churches of Christ, there is an active understanding that our mission to love each other and serving the Lord in this community is a higher mission than insisting on uniformity of thought on all issues. Anyone coming to serve with this congregation will need to have a heart for loving and serving each other and to keep the main thing the main thing.
Our Mission
The desired mission of the Juneau Church of Christ is to love and serve God, to proclaim the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and equipped by the power of the Holy Spirit, to live these truths out loud by loving and serving others in His name.
What We are Looking for in a Minister
We are looking for a man who loves the Lord, loves people, and has a passion to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ. Ideally, this would be a man with a wife who is a life partner with the the same love for God and people. While the primary duties of the minister would be to preach and teach the ways of God as taught in the Scriptures, we desire the man, his wife, and his family, to be fully participating members of the congregation, equal in the community of believers, ready and willing to join in the building up of our small part of the body of Christ.
Contact Us
Send a letter of interest, a resume, a link to recent sermon recordings, and three references to:
Attention Elders:
Juneau Church of Christ
8755 Trinity Drive
Juneau, Alaska 99801
Email: juneaucofc@gmail.com.
https://sites.google.com/site/juneaucofc