This is Our Story

The story of North Boulevard is a story of abundant growth and blessings, which we completely attribute to the greatness of our God. It is the story of Christian brothers and sisters who have dedicated themselves, their families, and their resources to the advancement of the kingdom of God with the mission of spreading the Gospel and making disciples.

Since the day North Boulevard was founded, we have always had a passion for making disciples and planting churches.

In 1942, a group of Christians from East Main Church of Christ in downtown Murfreesboro felt called to plant a church. For 5 years they prayed, fund-raised, and planned. With $5,000, they bought an old barn on the corner of Lytle Street and North Tennessee Boulevard, which had already been renovated into a large auditorium for church use.

The building was just a few blocks away from their original congregation, but it was within walking distance of the local college, now known as Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU), where they could reach out to the students who attended there. Over 150 worshipers gathered for the first time in that old barn on Sunday, June 15, 1947, and North Boulevard Church of Christ was born.

Within the next year, elders and deacons were appointed and a full-time minister was hired, and eventually a children’s Sunday School program was formed. By 1952, the congregation had grown so much, that North Boulevard built a new building on Tennessee Boulevard across from MTSU.

The Sunday gatherings grew so crowded in 1961 that it became necessary to provide 2 morning services, which has remained a tradition to this day.

For the next several decades, North Boulevard continued to grow and to serve the surrounding community. For example, a ladies quilting group was formed to sew quilts for a regional children’s home. The ministry still meets and quilts are still made to this day. North Boulevard members were also instrumental in the founding of Middle Tennessee Christian School and the Stones River Manor senior living community in the 1960s.

Additional ministry work that is still continued today includes food and clothing drives, special collections for relief funds, a large Meals on Wheels program, and active participation in local Inner City Ministry.

We just kept growing and growing!

Black and white photo of children standing on the new steps of the additions made the original building.

Black and white photo of the church gathered in the new auditorium, which was added to the original building.

Black and white photo of elderly women sewing a quilt together.

Children on steps of new addition

New Auditorium

Quilting Ministry

Growing Families. Making Disciples.

Throughout the next several decades, new ministries and programs were started to help families grow in Jesus Christ. Since the 1970s, North Boulevard has developed a thriving youth ministry, the NBYG, that involves and serves hundreds of teenagers every year. In the 80’s, the Sonshine School was created to be a mother’s day out daycare program that teaches children in the community about God and His church. In the following decade, North Boulevard also began sponsoring professional counseling for its members through AGAPE. All of these ministries have continued to grow and are still available today.

More room to expand the Kingdom.

In addition to serving the community in Murfreesboro, our church has always placed great value on global missions, having supported missionaries all over the world.

The congregation continued to grow in size, and by the late 90’s more money was raised for the purchase of a larger plot of land on North Rutherford Boulevard. After the construction of a new building was finished, we moved to our new location on Easter Sunday of 1997, which was only a few months before the 50th Anniversary of the North Boulevard’s founding.

Group of teenagers from the youth group putting on a Vacation Bible School skit for the orphans at the City of Children in Ensenada, Mexico.

Elders grilling food to serve to the orphans at the City of Children

Serving orphans in Ensenada

NBYG Mission Trip to Ensenada, Mexico

A group of children using a shovel to break ground for the new building as congregation members stand watching in the background.

Groundbreaking of the new building

Less than 2 decades later, North Boulevard once again committed ourselves to God. On Easter Sunday of 2013, we began asking God to specifically use us to help spark a worldwide spiritual awakening, and we set a goal to raise $1.6M to be used for that purpose. However, when all of the pledges were collected for this 2020 Vision, our faithful family of God actually pledged $6.1M! We marveled at God’s ability to multiply our efforts more than we could have imagined.

With the money that was raised, North Boulevard began planting campuses in the Murfreesboro area, starting with our West Campus on the first Sunday of April, 2014. Spaces were created for our Latino and Chinese communities to worship and study the scriptures together. We paid off the mortgage on the East Campus building, getting free from debt, and we put a greater focus on relational discipleship through small groups. We also created the School of Christian Thought in order to invite high-caliber Christian professionals to discuss and explore a Christian worldview in all facets of life.

The 2020 Vision

Through the 2020 Vision, North Boulevard also started a TV program called A New Day, which allowed us to share the word of God in 74 nations across all 6 inhabited continents. The equipment purchased to produce the TV program also allowed us to begin livestreaming our Sunday morning services on the internet, which began in October of 2018. By the end of 2019, it was decided to discontinue the televised program and switch completely to the internet livestream on Sunday, January 5, 2020.

The new building later became known as the East Campus

2020 Vision Reveal Video

Preacher David Young on a flatscreen TV as a part of the New Day TV Program.

A New Day TV Program

God used this time of stillness to refine and clarify our vision. While the country was on lockdown, we fortified our small groups, meeting in homes and through video calls, and we began to thrive as a new sense of togetherness was realized. The Sunday morning livestream grew into Boulevard Online – our online campus – that allows us to connect with our members at home as well as other believers around the world!

In 2022, the New Day Vision was re-launched with the goal of raising $5M to help us make disciples and plant churches here, near, and far. But our mighty and gracious God blessed us with so much more than we expected. On March 20th, we were astonished to find that $12M had been pledged to the Vision! A substantial portion of the giving campaign was dedicated to the construction of a permanent building for our West Murfreesboro Campus, which had been a pop-up campus for nearly 10 years. We celebrated the Grand Opening of the new building on August 5th & 6th, 2023, dedicating this space to serving the surrounding community for the glory of God's kingdom!

Refining and Clarifying the Vision

At the beginning of 2020, we began preparing for a new giving campaign, the New Day Vision, to continue the work we had started in the previous decade. Unfortunately, the sudden spread of the coronavirus and economic shutdown put the vision on hold.