From a Downtown Corner to a Sixteen-Acre Campus
Prairie Grove Christian Church sits on Wayne Villines Road on the western edge of Prairie Grove, a position its leadership describes as strategically located along a major thoroughfare to serve the communities of Western Washington County, Arkansas. The story began in 1885, when a small band of believers started meeting on the corner of Kate Smith and Bush Streets in downtown Prairie Grove under the name First Christian Church. That early congregation was part of the American Restoration Movement, an effort to call Christians back to the basics of the Bible.
Growth in the 1980s led the church to cast a vision for ministry to children, youth, and families. In 1993 the congregation purchased eight acres just outside the city limits, and the following year they moved to the present property at 611 Wayne Villines Road, built the current auditorium, classrooms, and gym, and adopted the name Prairie Grove Christian Church. Since then the campus has grown by another eight acres, with dedicated ministry space for children and students added along the way.
Love God. Love Others. Make Disciples.
The motto that orients everything at PGCC is simple and recurring: Love God. Love Others. Make Disciples. The church frames this around the Great Commandment (Matthew 22:37-40) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). Its stated vision is to restore hope in the lives of all people who are far from God by bringing them into a dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
Eight values shape how the staff and elders try to live out that mission: Grace, where all are welcomed as they are without needing to clean up first; Truth, holding the Bible above as the final authority; Evangelism, believing every believer can reach someone; Discipleship, growing in healthy relational small groups; Service, humbly meeting needs locally and globally; Generosity, sharing time, talent, and treasure; Healing, closing the gap in broken relationships; and Family, strengthening marriages and partnering with parents.
What PGCC Believes
Prairie Grove Christian Church is an independent, non-denominational congregation that lifts up Christ and stays faithful to the Bible as the Word of God. The statement of faith affirms belief in one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; in Jesus Christ, fully God and fully man, conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary, crucified and risen bodily, ascended, and returning to rule; and in the Holy Spirit, who convicts, indwells, helps in weakness, intercedes, and empowers believers for a fruitful Christian life.
Scripture is held as God's inspired and inerrant Word and the final authority for faith, truth, morality, and Christian living. Salvation is by grace through the blood of Jesus Christ, received by faith, repentance, and confession, with baptism by immersion commanded for every believer. The church teaches that marriage is a lifelong union between one man and one woman, that human life is sacred from conception to natural death, and that elders serve as overseers of the church, final interpretive authority of Scripture for the body, and shepherds of its members.
A Sunday Morning at PGCC
Two Sunday morning worship services are held at 9:00 AM and 10:30 AM, each typically running about an hour. The order is familiar and warm: singing together, reading Scripture, praying, taking communion, and hearing an encouraging, Bible-based message. Worship is blended, weaving classic hymns with current songs, led by a full band featuring drums, bass, acoustic and electric guitars, piano, and keyboard. Communion, the Lord's Supper, is observed every Sunday as a church family.
Dress is intentionally come-as-you-are. From jeans to a suit, the church is more concerned about people than fashion. Services are also available online through Facebook and YouTube, so anyone unable to attend in person can follow along.
Adult Bible classes and couples classes are offered alongside the services, and registration for those classes is handled through the church calendar.
Little Explorers and QuestKIDS
Children are a defining part of the church's identity. Two programs run during Sunday morning worship and again on Wednesday evenings.
Little Explorers serves children from birth through Pre-K. The preschool classrooms link play, art, games, and pretend back to each week's Bible story and key passage, with a dedicated preschool worship room where children sing, hear a Bible story, and pray together. Toddlers hear a Bible story, sing, and complete a craft that mirrors the lesson, while infants listen to worship songs and learn that God created them and Jesus loves them. Parents are invited to become more intentional at home and more connected to a community of faith.
QuestKIDS, for kindergarten through fifth grade, brings kids to Jesus through reading the Word, relationships, hands-on experiences, creativity, and fun. Sunday mornings include time in grade-level small-group Sunday School following a chronological walk through the Bible that covers Scripture over a three-year span. Wednesday nights from September through April (6:00 to 7:30 PM) are high energy and highly relational, the equivalent of Vacation Bible School every week, with skits, Bible teaching, rotations, and small-group discussion. Kids are divided into small groups by gender and grade.
Safety is taken seriously. Check-in happens at a station in the Early Childhood area, where a hallway leader greets families. Every volunteer has been screened, passed a background check, and received appropriate training. Hallways are monitored by a security team, exterior doors are kept locked, and a security tag is required for child pick-up. The same standards apply to QuestKIDS and 22Forty volunteers.
22Forty: Students in 6th Through 12th Grade
Student ministry at PGCC is called 22Forty and is built on Matthew 22:37-40, the same passage that anchors the whole church. The ministry exists to teach students to love God, love others, and make disciples, with five core values shaping programming: being in the Word, being in God's presence through worship, growing in relationship with Christ, growing in community with one another, and having fun.
Because junior high and high school students are at different stages, 22Forty keeps two distinct environments running side by side. Sunday mornings begin with Core Class, a discussion-oriented study of God's Word similar to Sunday school, meeting in the youth building at 9:00 AM. Students then join the whole church for corporate worship at 10:30 AM. Wednesday nights (September through April) are the main entry point: Junior High meets 6:00 to 7:30 PM, and High School meets 7:00 to 8:30 PM, with teaching, worship, small groups, games, and fun videos. D-Groups meet throughout the week for students who have shown commitment, and trips and events run throughout the year to deepen community.
Security on Wednesday nights includes eight scheduled volunteers monitoring different areas of the student campus and a paid, off-duty police officer patrolling campus. The student ministry is led by Matt Tibbit and Mikayla Aden, with families able to reach the office at the church's main number during business hours.
Men's, Women's, and Young Adult Connections
Adult discipleship at PGCC is intentionally relational. The men's ministry focuses on making disciples of men who are following Jesus, being changed by Jesus, and committed to the mission of Jesus, drawing on the pattern of Matthew 4:19. Weekly men's groups meet on Wednesdays at 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM, with leaders including Vance Eubanks, Kurt Evans, Sean Squire, Paul Martin, Sabian Sandoval, and Chuck Trantham. Men's Encounter, a transformational weekend offered twice a year in the spring and fall, walks through fourteen areas of a man's life with worship, testimony, teaching, and reflection.
The women's ministry welcomes women of all ages and life stages, gathering and growing in relationship with God and each other through weekly Bible studies and ongoing events.
The young adult ministry is a weekly, discussion-based group that explores topics such as purpose, relationships, mental health, and prayer through a biblical lens. Casual hangouts, dinners, and game nights build community beyond the meeting. It is led by Matthew and Kacie Howard, who both grew up at PGCC, attended Ozark Christian College, and returned to Northwest Arkansas to raise their family.
One Heart, One Mind: Caring for One Another
During the COVID-19 pandemic, members began asking how to help those inside the church facing job loss, reduced income, or sickness, and One Heart, One Mind grew out of that response. The ministry pools resources to assist individuals and families during hardship, crisis, and tragedy, funded by members giving one dollar a week per family member over and above regular giving. The church points to Acts 4:32, where the believers were one in heart and mind and shared everything they had, as the model's foundation.
Two practical ways to partner are giving to the One Dollar a Week Fund (online or in the designated boxes outside the sanctuary or Quest area) and submitting a form when a need is seen in the church family.
A Generous, Far-Reaching Missions Program
Missions is a major expression of the church's values of evangelism, service, and generosity. PGCC supports local and global partners through one-time gifts and ongoing monthly support, combining financial giving, prayer, and service.
Four missionary families carry the global work. Jim and Joni Bliffen serve in Scripture impact and financial bookkeeping with Pioneer Bible Translators in Papua New Guinea. Jared and Stephanie Henke serve in worship and associate ministry with Mustard Seed Christian Church in Kyoto, Japan, supporting a church plant. Ray and Pam Trantham develop national leaders in Ukraine with Hearts4Ukraine. Nick and Jes Tuttle plant churches in Ireland through Kontaktmission.
Local and ministry partners include Rapha International (fighting trafficking and sexual abuse), Saving Grace (housing and education for young women aging out of foster care or facing homelessness), Life Ministries (a re-sale store and food pantry located in Prairie Grove), Cookson Hills Christian Ministries (residential services for at-risk children and families), Christ on Campus at the University of Arkansas, Ozark Christian College, the Arkansas Church Planting Network, House of Hope in Haiti, BlackBox International, Loving Choices, LifeWise Academy in Prairie Grove, Good News Production International, Hands of Hope International in Guatemala, and the Windward Islands School of Evangelism. Katie Lanier coordinates the missions team.
A Lorene Jones Memorial Scholarship program supports students active in the ministry of PGCC who pursue Bible college within the Christian Church/Churches of Christ brotherhood.
Serving, Giving, and Staying Connected
Service is presented as every-member ministry, with opportunities behind the scenes, with children, in leading worship, and out in the community. Any volunteer serving in Little Explorers, QuestKIDS, and 22Forty completes Ministry Safe training and a background check.
Giving supports both the life of the church and the missions supported through it. Gifts can be made online through Church Center, in person during a service at the offering box as worshipers enter the worship center, or by contacting the office about other options. Members are also invited to support the One Heart, One Mind fund separately.
A prayer wall invites anyone to share a request or praise report with the church family, and families can build their household around PGCC through resources like NextLevel (Ozark Christian College's online teachings) and RightNow Media (a free library of Bible studies, conference recordings, kids' shows, and more).
Prairie Grove Christian Church positions itself as a community-focused, multi-generational body holding to a simple, Bible-saturated, relational way of following Jesus together.