History
The Beginning
The Bridge began with 10 people gathering in a Corona home around the dream for a multicultural church community to be established in the previously untouched area of the South Chino Preserve. After a few properties in the Chino Preserve fell through, The Bridge discerned God’s direction to continue forward in a different location. In 2001, The Bridge began holding Sunday services at Ranch View Elementary School in south Ontario, and eventually settled in a commercial space on Roswell Ave in the city of Chino.
A New Home
In 2007, our mother and sending church, Chino Valley Reformed (later known as Oaks Community Church) went through a critical transition in leadership and The Bridge and Oaks began to pray for what eventually became the merger between The Bridge and Oaks Community Church. With this opportunity came a huge blessing of a “permanent home” for The Bridge, yet potential challenges with a multi-generational community. Both congregations embraced these challenges, and we became one church later that year. Meanwhile, a congregation of 5 Spanish speaking families, La Senda, began to meet throughout Ontario and Chino. La Senda soon outgrew their space, and by means of the merger between Oaks and The Bridge, the planters of the Bridge and La Senda began to collaborate on strategies to work together to reach the entire nearby community. After working together under the same roof but under different leadership for 3 years, the planters of both churches sensed the Spirit’s leading towards greater unity in order to truly be a multiethnic church. With great joy and with a sense of fulfillment, La Senda became The Bridge En Español, an integral part of this new “One Church” with two gatherings in two different languages.
Full Circle
In 2012, Mission Pointe Church, a Lutheran congregation aiming to plant a church in the Preserve in South Chino, joined the body of The Bridge. Through this miraculous display of providential union, The Bridge acquired Mission Pointe’s property on Pine Ave in the Preserve and began to re-envision our original dreams of a church in South Chino. In June 2016, The Bridge sold the property on Oaks and moved temporarily to hold gatherings at Ontario Christian High School. Our long-held dream of being a church on Pine Ave in the Preserve came true on Sunday, February 16, 2020.