On Sunday afternoon, March 9, 1980, a small group of people met for worship in a home on Torrey Pines Drive. Torrey Pines Baptist Mission was born that day under the sponsorship of Twin Lakes Baptist Church. During the mission’s first year, the congregation was led by several lay preachers and eventually moved into its first storefront at 5333 Jay Avenue. Twin Lakes Baptist Church purchased 3.2 acres at the southwest corner of Cheyenne Avenue and Torrey Pines Drive as a future location for the mission fellowship. However, due to conflicts with the sponsoring church, Torrey Pines Baptist Mission was closed on May 24, 1981. With many of the same members, our ministry was reopened on July 12, 1981, as Foothills Southern Baptist Chapel, a mission under the sponsorship of First Southern Baptist Church of Las Vegas. Steve Davis served as pastor from July, 1981 to July, 1982, when he left to enter seminary. Under his leadership, a second storefront was secured to accommodate the mission’s growth, and negotiations were begun to acquire the land originally purchased for the mission from Twin Lakes Baptist Church. These negotiations for our present site were completed under Interim Pastor Earl Greene, a member at that time of First Southern Baptist Church.
Our present pastor, Hoyt Savage, began serving the church in November, 1982. Our ministry and membership expanded in the storefront location, while the church continued praying for a permanent home. Groundbreaking for the Worship Center building was held on June 30, 1985. Construction for our first building (worship center) actually began in January, 1986, and was miraculously completed through a combination of paid and volunteer labor, including that of our own church members and many volunteer builders from Louisiana churches.
We celebrated God’s provision in our first Sunday morning worship service at our present location on December 7, 1986. We gratefully dedicated our building to God’s glory on February 8, 1987. Foothills entered a new era of its history when we left the “mission church” status and constituted as an autonomous church body on August 20, 1989. Our classroom and office building, referred to as the Multipurpose Building by our members, was completed in October 1996.
We have continued to enlarge our staff to provide specific ministry direction. Pastor Eldon Skaggs, Associate Pastor Music/Community Ministries, joined our staff in July 2002. We are presently searching for a pastor to lead our Student ministries and our Christian education/discipleship ministries. Over the past five years, we have been moving with great intention to become a more balanced, healthy church reaching our community and developing growing, serving Christians. We expect that God will continue to extend His grace to us in the coming years as He enlarges our vision, ministry and fellowship.
