Our Story
Original Mission Chattanooga / The Camp House on Williams St.
In September of 2009, seven missionaries and their four children moved from Connecticut/NYC to plant the Mission Chattanooga. They knew no one in Chattanooga, but they felt called here through a dream that God gave to Angie Sorensen. In February of 2010, the Mission launched its first worship service, Evensong. Over time, the Mission began to grow. The Mission Chattanooga now has hundreds of worshipers each week and laid the foundation for the Mission Abbey, a collection of parishes which include the Mission Chattanooga, Mission Red Bank, Mission Cleveland, and a related church plant, Mission Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Inside the original Camp House on Williams St.
A Place for the Neighborhood
How can we plant a church that is a blessing to the neighbors and neighborhood in which it is rooted? How can we create a place that reveals the goodness and love of God as much throughout the week as it does during Sunday worship?
These were the questions that fueled our imagination and calling to plant the Mission Chattanooga. In 2010 we moved into a beautiful old warehouse on Williams Street in the Southside neighborhood. In order to serve our community we created The Camp House, a place that would house our church and also other businesses that fostered community and cultivated the culture of our city. The Camp House was one of the first third wave coffee shops in Chattanooga and our space quickly became a hub for creatives, artists, and entrepreneurs.
Our hope was always that the hospitality of God was shown through our actions and service in the work of The Camp House. That we serve a God that deeply wants to be reunited with us and who cares deeply about our community and our work. And God was faithful to us and to so many of you. And our community began to grow…
One City, Two Chapels
Intimacy in worship was always something we valued at the Mission. And so as our church started to grow we began feeling the need to plant a new chapel. In 2012, Ben & Mary Ferguson joined the Mission Chattanooga to do just that. After months of gathering, a small core team formed the Highland Chapel, a worshipping community in the center of the Highland Park, Orchard Knob, and Ridgedale neighborhoods. The Mission Chattanooga became one church in two chapels, Southside and Highland.
In 2014 our Southside Chapel and The Camp House began a search for a new location after our lease in Southside was not renewed. This was an incredible opportunity to seek the Lord and ask where he would have us move to next, to continue to be a blessing to our community. Through many connections and friends we were able to move to the corner of ML King Boulevard and Lindsey Street, right in the heart of our city. The Southside Chapel changed its name to the City Center Chapel. In this new iteration, the church and The Camp House served more than just a neighborhood, it served an entire city. The Camp House grew from a small coffee shop to one of the most important cultural venues stewarding the common good in Chattanooga. Since 2015, The Camp House has served thousands of people during daytime cafe operations and hosted over 800 cultural events.
Meanwhile, pastors with a calling to plant churches were being drawn to our community. In 2015, while City Center moved from Southside to ML King Blvd., Mission Red Bank officially opened their doors on Dayton Boulevard in Red Bank. That same year our college pastor, William Eavenson, felt God calling him to plant a church in Cincinnati, Ohio. After months of prayer, fundraising, and visiting the city, William and his wife Savannah journeyed out from our church family and planted Mission Cincinnati in 2016. A couple years later a group from Cleveland, Tennessee began attending our Evensong service at the City Center Chapel. That small group formed the nucleus of what would become a new parish, Mission Cleveland, under the leadership of Father Jake Stum. These different branches of the Mission now form the Mission Abbey, a collection of three parishes under the spiritual oversight of Abbot Chris Sorensen.
City Center Chapel
From December 2014 through January 2019 the City Center Chapel continued to grow. Over five years we became a church centered around Mission Communities, small groups of fellowship committed to growing in the Lord and in life together. During this time many of the children who were part of the Mission became teenagers and we formed new ministries for middle and high schools students.
Highland Chapel
After meeting for two years in the St. Andrew’s Center our Highland Chapel moved into Richmont Graduate University’s chapel. This space served the chapel well, allowing it to be a faithful presence in the three neighborhoods it bordered and allowing the chapel to grow. It also served as the site of many Abbey services that brought together different chapels for particular moments of worship and prayer.
Mission Chattanooga Parish Courtyard at 806 E. 12th Street
One Parish in a New Home
In 2018 the City Center Chapel began exploring whether or not to renew their lease on ML King. The church had grown significantly and even the service of The Camp House evolved in such a way that we felt God calling us to explore a new location. At the same time, Highland Chapel was running out space for children’s ministry and was beginning to look for a new location as well. After months of prayer the decision was made to bring the two chapels back together into a single parish and look for a permanent home together.
At the beginning of 2019 the two chapels began the process of combining staffs and resources and formally came back together as a single parish in June 2019. Earlier that same year we purchased an old warehouse in Onion Bottom, an industrial district between the ML King and Southside neighborhoods just east of the City Center. This is an area full of life, containing most of the city’s public works department, police department, industrial businesses, and social services. The new location gives us the opportunity to reveal the love and goodness of God in a new way to a new place.