Our History

In January 1997, Tom and Lisa Walsh moved to Manchester, CT to begin what they called “New River Church.” They were church planting Missionaries from the Northport Baptist Church in Northport, New York.

During the same month, Doug and Karis Rowse moved to South Windsor from a Senior pastoral position in Punxsutawney, PA to start a church called “Hope Community Church.”

At a Pastors’ prayer meeting in February of that year, Doug and Tom met and discovered that they both had the same vision for a new kind of church of “cell groups” that would, in turn, start many other churches. The two couples quickly became friends and supported each other in their efforts to start the new churches.

In July of 1997, they began to pray about the possibility of merging their two works together. After all, they reasoned, God had put them in the same area at the same time with the same vision. Perhaps God wanted them to start the same church. As they prayed and spoke with their leadership at both the Northport Baptist Church and the Christian and Missionary Alliance’s New England District, they discovered that yes, God wanted them to work together to start one church.

In October of that year, the two churches came together under the Christian and Missionary Alliance to form the “New River Community Church.” In the first six months of their existence, the newly merged church reached an average Sunday morning attendance of about 80 people with 35 families who considered it to be their church “home.” The church has grown steadily since that time, with a typical Sunday morning attendance of nearly 150 people in October, 1999.

In June 2001, the first of what we pray are many new churches was started from New River. Tom and a team of people were sent to Vernon, Connecticut to start “Crossroads Community Church.” Doug remained as pastor of New River Community Church.