TCC began with the name Christian Life Community Centre in 1974, in response to God’s call to plant a church in Toowoomba that would encourage the unity of the Church in the city.  To promote discipleship and accountability, our founders, Ian Shelton and David Burrell, submitted themselves to Howard Carter, a pastor in the Blue Mountains who headed up the Logos Foundation.  Two years after the church’s leadership was relinquished to Howard in 1988, he was found to be immoral, so his place was taken by Graham Fletcher.

In 1991, Graham stepped down in favour of Ian, and the church disassociated from the Logos Foundation and renamed itself as Toowoomba City Church.  Since that time, the Lord has blessed TCC with the Neil St Centre, an expanding staff to administer our diverse ministries, and many remarkable new people who identify with our calling and bring their unique gifts to contribute to God’s work through this congregation. You can read more about the history here.   

TCC’s vision has been city-focussed from its inception.  One of the key verses that shaped our vision was I Cor. 3:16 in the Amplified Bible: “Do you not discern and understand that you [the whole church at Corinth] are God's temple (His sanctuary), and that God's Spirit has His permanent dwelling in you [to be at home in you, collectively as a church and also individually]?”  This verse illustrates that the New Testament model for the Church included a unified Body at the city level, or in other words, one Church in a city.  Of course, Scripture also emphasises the global unity of Christ’s Church, as well as the value of smaller groups meeting together, but a crucial aspect of God’s plan of salvation concerns cities.

From this foundation, TCC’s vision is two-fold: 1) to see the Church in Toowoomba unite together in order to release God’s Kingdom into the city, and 2) to see God use this unified city-wide Church to transform the rest of the city, then the nation, and ultimately other nations around us.

As TCC has joined in God’s work of bringing rescue and restoration to transform cities and nations, He has helped us define three distinct ways in which we should work out our vision:

As a Community.  Foundational to God’s redemptive plan is the nurturing of loving relationships within His Body.  Both as a congregation and as part of the Church of the city, we identify as a family with the calling to encourage, serve and forgive each other.  We do life together through the good, the bad and the ugly.  From the security that this brings, we are empowered and equipped to reach out beyond us.

As a Catalyst.  Just as a chemical catalyst assists a chemical reaction, we seek to be a spiritual catalyst that promotes church unity in Toowoomba, and from this, the transformation of the city.  We are committed to playing our part in breaking down divisions so that the city-wide Church will be whole and God’s Kingdom will be released in our city.  Furthermore, we seek to be a catalyst for this to occur in other Australian cities, as well as cities in the nations around us.

As a Catapult.  We have a strong sense of calling to be sent out into the world around us to reproduce the healing that we have experienced.  We place equal emphasis on being catapulted into our neighbourhoods as we do on being sent further afield.  We seek to bring God’s restoring grace to the lost, whether we meet them in our natural circles of influence, or in places near or far that God calls us to be involved in.

In pursuit of our vision to bring transformation to cities and nations, TCC has recognised the vital need to form partnerships with others of the same heart.  To this end, we have forged strong connections with leaders of churches and ministries across Toowoomba and throughout Australia and the South Pacific.

The Christian Leaders Network (CLN) is a group of Toowoomba pastors that meets together weekly to build relationships, worship and pray for the city.

One Heart is a national group of Christian leaders who share the vision for city-wide unity.  It provides resources to churches across the nation that are seeking to build unity in their locality.

Translinc is a network of pastors in the South Pacific region who are promoting church unity in their own cities.  It holds an annual conference to bring these leaders together for encouragement and to strategise how they may continue in their mission of bringing transformation to their cities and nations.