Western Hills Church Story
 

Press Release 

WHC Vision  

WHC Purpose
WHC Mission
 

 

Western Hills Church has had a great life and has a great future. From this page you can get a glimpse of our past and you can also read our Vision adopted in October 2006 as well as updates on the progress we’re making in fulfilling the vision.

In 1947 Western Hills Church began in downtown San Mateo. A small group of adults moved from a Bible study group in a home to rented facilities at the Oddfellow’s Lodge on “B” Street. The men would arrive early on Sunday mornings to clean up from the lodge meeting leftovers and hangovers of the evening before. Those were the beginnings of God using Western Hills to make a difference in people’s lives.

In 1955 the church broke ground for a new facility on San Mateo’s 39th Avenue. By 1956 the growing church had moved in to their new location and the outreach and service to the community continued to expand. More lives than ever before were being touched by the church.

By the late 1960’s the church started thinking that a larger facility was needed and so in the 1970’s they moved to the present location just off the campus of College of San Mateo. Through the remainder of the 20th century the church grew and reached people for Christ all over the Peninsula and even further.

In August 2005 Karl Ortis was invited by the church to serve as pastor. His wife, Janet, and their two sons, Mack and James, are all deeply involved in the ministry of Western Hills. One of the first things Karl did was to lead the church to create a team to discover God’s vision for the church. That team also built the first year plan to get the vision rolling forward.

As of September 2007, nine months into the plan, the church has completed five of the first seven goals:

  • Elder selection and training is nearly complete and the two new candidates will be ready for presentation at the Fall Members Meeting.

  • Children’s Ministry has received overall leadership in Bob and Janet Paige; a ministry name – KidCity; first-class training for 4 of the KidCity team at The Orange Conference in Atlanta, Georgia; and newly remodeled facilities (to be completed by Christmas 2007).

  • We’ve developed the Ministry Exploration Project which gives the WHC family the opportunity to know what ministries are available and a path for getting involved.

  • A Campus Development Team has been formed and led by Rachel Zacapa. They have completed a 90% remodel of the fellowship hall, have engaged an architect for helping develop outside improvements to the campus and given oversight to the remodel of the KidCity facilities.

  • The church has taken up the “whole new way to do mission giving” and has established three partnerships in three of the most challenging environments: Indonesia, New York City and San Francisco. Beginning in 2007 our international, national and California missions offerings will be divided 50/50 with our new partners and with the general mission fund that we have a long history of partnering with.

  • All five of purpose teams (Magnification, Maturity, Membership, Missions, Ministry) now have leadership for them and three have full teams in place.