In the Late 1980's and early 1990's God's spirit began to stir up the Wells, Maine Church of the Nazarene. By unmistakable leadings He caused the principal members to start seeking a closer walk with Him.

In 1993 a group from that church led by R. Webber, a young local preacher, started holding Prayer and evangelistic services at the Mt. Agamenticus Tabernacle, an unused church building in York, Maine owned by Rev. Stevens a relative of Webber. This building from a former generation was heated by wood stoves with unfinished walls but in it's shelter the group drew together and gathered strength as a home missionary church body.

Meanwhile others in the area, who knew nothing of these people, were praying that God would help them find a spiritual Holiness fellowship with whom to worship and labor. By a very improbable chain of providence they came to meet the group in York.

About this same time a former pastor of the Wells Nazarene church, S. Smith, caught the vision for local evangelism and started going house to house in Southern Maine and Southern New Hampshire, witnessing, handing out evangelistic literature and starting Bible Studies wherever there was an open door. This pastor moved to Sanford, Maine, due to it’s central location, to continue his door to door mission work and to complete work on a book, which he subsequently published under the title "Holiness or the Ecumenical Movement; which way is right?"

By 1995 the Lord had drawn together a small group of like-minded people into a loving fellowship. In additon to the services in York we began holding worship and evangelistic services in the homes of some members in Sanford. God moved on Bro. Smith's heart (and let his car break down) to get him to stay put and start leading the services for us in Sanford. In those early years we had several families and individuals who Bro. Smith had found in the Sanford area with no church affialiation that joined our fellowship. Some only came for a time but others are still with us.

We were a very diverse group from different backgrounds. But we were united by a desire to see a revival of the old style of Earnest Christianity that we all experienced in former times in the Holiness movement. This was once the standard of Christian lifestyle here in New England and it is our desire to see this brand of Christian Holiness once again burning brightly in this region. We were convinced that part of the nature of true old fashioned Holiness was the emphasis on reaching the lost souls in the world with no church affiliation or background. Therefore we decided to be as aggressive in home mission activity as the Lord would allow.

Our initial purpose was to support both of these outreach efforts, in York and in Sanford, to see if the Lord would raise up churches in both towns. We structured our fellowship to achieve this end.

In 1997 we held our first Revival Meeting and moved our meeting place into rented space in the Mid-Town Mall in downtown Sanford. We are currently meeting in that same place.

About this time a few of our number formed a relationship with the Bible Missionary Church. This caused us to consider whether to join our small group to a larger existing church. After much prayerful consideration, the rest of the membership voted not to seek membership in any existing outside church. Instead we began to organize ourselves as an independent church body based in Maine.

We felt that this was necessary to maintain the vision that The Lord had given us when we started out. Different ones of our number had suffered in our former church affiliations at the hands of unspiritual leaders, both liberal and legal, sectarian and eccumenecal, and we were leery of going there again. Our desire was to return to the original evangelistic simplicity and purity of the early Methodist societies without all the baggage that most Holiness Churches have accumulated in the last 250 years.

Following this decision we were strengthened by some who came from afar to join with us. A pastor and his family who were also spiritual refugees. After a time of recovery and healing he accepted ministerial credentials from us and they went looking for a place to raise up another church in the area. The Lord has led them to a neighboring state and is using them to salvage a local church which was at the point of closing it's doors for a sister Holiness denomination .

By 1999 we had ceased holding services in York and focused all of our efforts into building up the more productive work in Sanford to the place where it could become the base of operations to launch other outreach efforts. In 1999 the Lord helped us to organize sufficiently to become incorporated in the State of Maine as "the Christian Holiness Church, Inc.". At the same time He helped us to purchase a parsonage on a parcel of land large enough for future construction of a church building. This parsonage became our Legal Corporate headquarters.

In 2000 we affiliated with an association of like-minded independent churches, the "International Conservative Holiness Association". At this time Pastor Smith left us to start another mission work in western New England and we called Rev. Roscoe Hosier and his wife, from Indiana, to be our pastor. God has blessed Bro. Roscoe in his labors among us.

Through all of this time the Lord has been slowly adding to our number "such people as should be saved" and our original group has grown. As they say around here: "things grow slow in Maine" and "better slow growth that lasts, than fast growth that doesn’t." In all things God is giving the increase.

Now in 2002, through God’s matchless grace, we have been enabled to start preparing the ground to build a permanent home for our church body. "We being in the way, the Lord has led us" and "Hitherto (up to this point) the Lord has Helped us!" Our treasurer testified that she thinks the Lord is multiplying our resources like He did with the Loaves and Fishes. All glory to His Name!

"This is (all) the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our eyes". When we started out, as a somewhat dispirited band of spiritual refugees, none of us had any master plan beyond keeping close to Jesus and just trying to survive spiritually in the midst of exceedingly troubled times. He had all of us, but that didn’t amount to much. We certainly didn’t imagine that in 7 short years we would be breaking ground on a new building for another branch of God’s church in Sanford.