Where We Started

Cross Church envisions itself being a place where people can come and hear the good news of Jesus for the first time. We recently changed our name from Palm Vista Baptist Church to Cross Church to better communicate this simple vision. Cross Church began in February, 1998 as Palm Vista Baptist Church. Meeting at Dysart High School the fledgling church faced an important strategic decision: should it focus on impacting the communities north of Bell Road or the communities south of it? Rather than choosing to focus exclusively on one or the other, the members of the church decided to reach out to both. So the church had a vision of people of all ages, races, and nationalities coming together to worship God, grow in their faith in Him, and make their faith known.

A New Plan

When we moved into our current building in November 1999, the family communities that now lie to our south were yet to be constructed, so our early church enrollment was primarily senior adults, but things quickly changed. Surprise Farms became a flourishing family community, and our church collectively renewed its commitment to reach people at all stages of life. And now with the completion the Loop 303 our church is easily connected to communities both to the north and south of Surprise. Along the way we have added educational space for our church on the weekends and for use for our schools (Cross Christians School and Preschool) throughout the week.

Most recently we constructed a new worship center on our Surprise Campus and moved into it in June 2015. This allowed us to remodel our original worship center into a children-friendly building that houses our Cross Church Kids. Cross Church has grown from those early days in the Dysart High School into a congregation of 1000 plus worshippers on Sunday. But more than that we have grown into a vision of being a church in the West Valley that is biblical, relevant, and missional. The Phoenix Campus was launched in March of 2016 as Cross Church’s second location and is the first campus to make us a multisite church.

Extending the Vision

Recently, God has inspired us to reach out in His name to our area schools, at-risk children in the foster care system, and mission causes here and around the world in an initiative we now call #WeCare. We invite you to consider coming alongside us as we write the next chapter in the Cross Church story!