Our history
We began with 23 people gathering in downtown Los Gatos. The congregation later moved to Shannon Road, where we continue to worship, serve, and grow together.
G.W. McGrew, an elder from the Santa Clara church, helped bring together the group that organized the congregation in June 1881. Twenty-three people signed the application to the Presbytery Committee on Home Missions.
R.C. Moodie preached the first service at Lyndon Hall on West Main Street that July. Within months, the congregation was worshiping in a converted house near Forbes Mill.
Women in the congregation raised much of the money for land, and Los Gatos builders constructed the first church building. It was dedicated on May 3, 1885, with the debt paid and $6.35 remaining.
After major town fires in 1888 and 1891, the trustees allowed the church bell to serve as a community fire alarm. The congregation worshiped on Church Street for nearly seven decades.
When the Presbytery dissolved Lakeside Church in the hills above Los Gatos, we received its lectern and a Bible printed in 1860. The Bible is now kept in Dave’s office.
The restored Wintler Memorial Window also survives from the Church Street building and can be seen in the Fireside Room.
The congregation moved from Church Street to Shannon Road in 1953. That first building is now the Fellowship Hall. Construction of the present sanctuary began in 1956 and was completed in 1958.
Members helped shape the new church in lasting ways: a committee selected the sanctuary's exterior Christian symbols, and the Madeline Thomas bequest helped install the organ and finish construction.
Volunteers planted the Redwood Grove as a living memorial to the Rev. Nottley Stever Hammack, who served as pastor from 1939 to 1954. It was dedicated on May 29, 1960.
A 1999 project added a pathway, landscape lighting, and new plantings. Later Eagle Scout projects added benches and string lights, helping make the grove a gathering place for the whole congregation.
The buildings and ministries have changed over time, but the purpose is familiar: a place to worship, care for one another, serve neighbors near and far, and welcome new generations into the life of the church.
