Parkway Community Church

Parkway Community Church was conceived  with the intent to make an impact in our world for Christ.  In 1965, Pastor John Hanson was asked by the Northern California Baptist Conference Executive Director to determine whether or not a church was needed in Fairfield. The Director then asked John if he would start the church.   After much prayer and evaluation, Pastor John and his family moved to Fairfield and began gathering a core group of people. A small prayer and Bible study group soon became a church.  Many contacts were made in the community, and by January of 1966, the group held their first Sunday service in the home of one of the members.  In September of the same year, 31 charter members officially formed a church.

The next task was to try and find a suitable building in which to meet.  This was a long and challenging process.  The church first met in a home, next a funeral chapel, then to the Veteran's Memorial Building of Suisun, and on to renting an old church building in downtown Fairfield.  This was quite a leap of faith for the 47 believers in 1970, but God was building their faith as they later purchased that church in 1973.

During this time God gave the church a distinctive call to minister to children and youth.  Bill DeVoe was called to oversee Christian Education in 1972, as well as Rich Hanson who came in 1976 as our High School Youth Pastor. These ministries have continued to be a hallmark of our church to this day.

After years of growing and outgrowing the church facilities on Broadway St., God provided the 187 people with a miracle!  3.7 acres of prime property on the corner of Heath Drive and Air Base Parkway were donated to us in 1982.  Yet we were faced with a great faith challenge again ... to build a new building, pay for the city assessments and the $37,000 note on the property.  This meant that we would need to sell our small church building and two homes on Broadway, move into an interim facility at Fairfield High School for 1½ years and increase our level of giving.  The Lord knew that we needed this kind of challenge to move forward.  The buildings were sold, we met at Fairfield High School's multipurpose room and began a season of spiritual as well as numerical growth.  This period of transition for us was an important step.  With all our supplies packed away in storage, it was a chance to rethink our original calling as a church ..."to make an impact in our world for Christ."  It was 1986 that we began formulating a vision and purpose statement, we changed our church name from Fairfield Baptist Conference Church to Parkway Community Church, our services became a blend of contemporary and traditional in style, and we began a building program.   By Easter of 1989 we had moved our ministries over to the new facility.

Since that time, our church has been focusing on being relevant to our rapidly changing world with the unchanging message of Christ.  To help bring leadership to our church in this area, we took another step of faith by calling Michael Pearsall as our Associate Pastor of Adult Ministries.  A growing need was our Junior High youth ministry, and in 1996 we were able to hire Tony Tiemann to be our first Junior High Youth Pastor.  In the spring of 1997 we added several new staff: Jodie Phan, Director of Children’s Ministries; Vern Buller, Business Administrator; Chris Gray, High School Youth Pastor; and in the fall of that year, Dan Deckard came on  staff as our Preaching and Teaching Pastor.  In the summer of 2000, Jennifer Marlette took over the children's ministries director position following the resignation of Sandy Thys.  In March of 2001, John Hanson officially retired from ministry and Dan Deckard assumed the position of Senior Pastor.   In the fall of 2001, Parkway called Dan Overby to serve as pastor of adult ministries.

Since 1993, small groups have been a vital part of our disciple making. The purpose is to promote spiritual growth, a deeper passion for Jesus Christ, and to create a desire to serve others, in our church and in our community.

Our intent has not changed since 1965...we want to impact our world for Christ.  We are very thankful to God for those that have been reached so far.  You are now a part of the next chapter of what God is doing here at Parkway Community Church.  Our best days are yet to come!   Let us not lose our desire “…to spread a passion for the supremacy of Jesus Christ through the ministry of the Word to all people.”