Nestled unobstrusively on a quiet residential street, this Georgian Colonial edifice of deceptively simple design takes good advantage of the gentle slope of the street away from West Main. By the time the church was completed in 1939 the congregation was then ten years old. 

Mrs. W.B. Foster, thirty- five people met in the Grove Street home of Mrs. B.R. Rhodes on January 30, 1929; from this initial meeting the West End Christian Church was organized, with 68 charter members enrolled on March 17, 1929, and a membership of 81 by the end of that year. John L. Berkeley Elementary School served as the congregation’s first meeting place at a cost of $13 per Sunday. Most prayer and missionary meetings were held in the home of Mr. and Mrs. E.D. Clutter at 710 Grove Street, the present site of radio station WBTM. The Rev. Mr. L. L. Bowers served as the church’s first pastor, and continued in this capacity until 
1932. 

move to the city’s West End early in 1930 with the purchase of a small house at 157 Marshall Terrace for use as a temporary chapel and five- department Sunday School. Despite the financial hardships posed by the Great Depression of the early and mid 1930s, the fledgling congregation met its financial challenges and continued to flourish, although from 1932—1936 the church employed primarily part- time and ad-interim ministers and laymen. In 1936, for the first time in four years, the church welcomed a fufl-time minister, the Rev. Mr. Allen Stauger, a recent graduate of Yale Divinity School. That same year the church completed payments on its temporary chapel. By then the congregation and work of the church had grown to the point that the need for a permanent building was pressing. Accordingly the congregation purchased a lot, the remnant of [John F.] Ficklen’s Field, at the corner of West Main and Randolph streets, now the site of Sacred Heart Catholic Church. 

By the time the West End congregation was ready to build, members deemed the West Main lot too small for the church and education building they planned, and the lot was sold to the Catholic Church. In turn the Catholic Church sold two lots it owned to the West End congregation in February 1938. Plans subsequently drawn by J. Bryant Heard began to take tangible form at a Ground-Breaking Service on October 27, 1938. The cornerstone was laid on February 26, 1939; articles placed in the box included a Bible, a local newspaper, a 1939 coin, as well as photographs, and records concerning the church, its history, ministers, and membership. The church, which cost $15,000, was dedicated the following July. At the time, the new sanctuary was presented with several handsome memorials which continue to enhance the building today. These memorials include the Rose Window over the Baptistry, given by the Junior Department; a silver communion service given by Mrs. William J. Regan in memory of her mother Mrs. Elvira Whitlock Clutter who was a charter member of the First Christian Church, organized in 1883; and the Communion Table, a memorial to Emma Lyon from her niece and nephew, Kate and Holt Lyon. The beautiful brass altar set added to the sanctuary in 1952 was a gift of Miss Loula flegan in memory of Mrs. Lillie Clutter Regan. The church’s pipe organ, a Kilgen, was installed in 1947.

Responding to West End Church’s continued growth and outreach, members commissioned a new educational building that was added to the upper side of the church behind the sanctuary in 1967.