Friday, August 22, 2025

This week’s flashback revisits CedarCreek’s 15-year celebration, a halfway marker on the journey to today. This article, written for that milestone, highlights the passion and impact of a church already changing lives. Don’t miss it:

In June of 1994, Lee Powell attended a church leadership conference at Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois.  There, he heard the lead pastor speak about the local church being the hope of the world.  Later that night, Lee gathered with four others who were attending the conference to talk about the possibilities for a church like that in the greater Toledo area. It was there where the idea for CedarCreek really began.

That November, twenty-five people came together to form the core of what is now known as CedarCreek Church.  In a small back room of a Chinese restaurant they committed to do whatever it took to see this mission become a reality.  After nine months of meeting, learning, laboring and praying together, CedarCreek launched its first public service on October 8, 1995 at the Holiday Inn French Quarter in Perrysburg, Ohio with 180 people in attendance.

In January of 1996, after being informed that the French Quarter would not be available for the Easter Sunday service, a search began for a new location.  It was the spring of 1996 when CedarCreek moved the Sunday morning service to the Perrysburg Junior High School (now the Commodore Building) in downtown Perrysburg, a suburb of Toledo, Ohio.  As the church began to grow, so did the number of services.  In 1997, they added a second Sunday morning service.  In the fall of 1999, CedarCreek launched its first Saturday service and within a week, attendance doubled.  The church began to experience amazing growth, and the need for a place to call home became apparent. 

In November 2000 the church purchased nineteen acres of land in Perrysburg Township on Lime City Road near Mandell Road, and secured an option for another twenty acres, for a total of thirty-nine acres of land.  However, the need for more parking and seats became obvious in the early fall of 2001, as the number of services grew to five (two on Saturday, and three on Sunday), and attendance swelled to 2,600.  That December CedarCreek moved to the old Perrysburg High School, where there was ample parking and more seats.

CedarCreek broke ground mid-September 2001 on a state of the art, 54,000 sq. ft. facility, with a 1,400-seat auditorium, and an electrifying children’s space.  They moved into this new location the next year and scaled back to three services (one on Saturday, two on Sunday). Steadily, more and more unchurched people began to attend CedarCreek and by the spring of 2004, with the release of the Passion of Christ, the attendance soared to around 5,000.

It was a surprise when quickly space became an issue once more.  The lobby was crowded, kid’s space was overflowing, and parking had become a problem again.  So, in March of 2005, another 30,000 sq. ft. was dedicated, which included a 330 seat chapel (that can serve as overflow), atrium, bookstore and much more children’s space.

Even with all the new space, CedarCreek continued to burst at the seams. In the spring of 2006, CedarCreek launched its first satellite location in the Anthony Wayne area (about 15 miles from Perrysburg).  In addition, another Toledo satellite opened in March 2008.