First Congregational Church is located at 2610 E. Northern Lights Blvd., and shares a campus with Wendler Middle School, the King Career Center, and the University of Alaska Anchorage.  This congregation has had a long and rich history in the Anchorage community.

History of First Congregational Church

In August of 1960, Bob and Agnes Hampton ran a notice in the Anchorage newspaper seeking people interested in forming a church in the Congregational Way.  At about the same time they also made the acquaintance of Dr. Howell Davies, then Secretary-Treasurer of the Mission Board of the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches.  Dr. Davies had been granted $1,000 by his former church in Wawatosa, Wisconsin, to go to Alaska to see about establishing a new church.  Dr. Davies came with his wife to Metlakatla and to Anchorage where they met on August 14th with the founding group of five individuals.  Three days later on August 17th First Congregational officially became a church and founding members Bob Hampton and Carol Tisdel were elected moderator and secretary, respectively. 

Gifts began to arrive from Sunday school children in Spencer, Iowa, and a Fellowship Guild in Beloit, Wisconsin.  In addition, gifts were received from Cheyenne, Wyoming, the Church of the Messiah in Los Angeles, and from many other churches in the association totaling thousands of dollars.

This generosity enabled the small group to grow, and a year later in 1961 they called their first minister, the Rev. Gerry Churchill, from Redlands, California.  Rev. Churchill served until 1964.  During his tenure, Rev. Churchill helped prepare the way for the building of a permanent church home.

In 1965 the church called Rev. David Carmen who saw it through its building phase.  Building was completed by many volunteers including a number of Congregational youth from around the country.  It was completed in 1967, and Rev. Dr. Howard Conn gave the first sermon.  Rev. Carmen remained until 1969.

In 1970 the Rev. Gerry Churchill returned to the pulpit where he remained until 1975 when Rev. Don Lindsay became the senior minister.

In the early morning hours of August 1, 1982, Rev. Lindsay and his family were awakened to the sounds of fire in the church next door to their home in the parsonage.  Speculation is that a discarded cigarette smoldering for many hours used all the oxygen in the building until the building imploded and burst into flames.  The building was nearly a complete loss.  Rev. Lindsay conducted services the following morning from the back of a truck in the parking lot of the still smoking building. It was unanimously agreed to rebuild, making the new building a bit bigger to accommodate Sunday school classrooms downstairs and enlarging the worship space.