Enterprise Christian Church traces its roots back to February 13, 1893, when 62 members gathered in the Town Hall. The congregation quickly grew, leading to the acquisition of their first property in 1898. With dedication and communal effort, members cut and hauled logs for the construction of our first sanctuary, which was completed on October 30, 1898, with 150 attendees. The church operated under the guidance of elders until 1902 when J.W. Crawford became the first full-time minister.
As membership fluctuated, the church faced various challenges and opportunities. In 1911, the decision was made to build a parsonage, reflecting the strong sense of community with all labor donated. The early 1920's witnessed successful evangelistic efforts, notably a baptism event in Wallowa Lake in 1922, where 79 souls took to the water. Up through the 1930's we shared a pastor with surrounding towns, so everyone could get a chance to hear God's word. By 1949 and into the 1950s, the church expanded with the addition of a basement, office space, rooms, a kitchen, and the introduction of our very first "indoor facilities"…knowing what winters in Wallowa County are like, this was a rather exciting installment! The 1956 expansion paved the way for discussions about the need for a Sunday School wing, eventually initiated in 1972.
Record attendance marked Easter services in 1976, leading to the addition of a new foyer in 1981. The church maintained a strong emphasis on missionary outreach, hosting evangelistic weeks, and entering a period of "Faith-Promise Rallies" in the 1960's and 70's, raising funds for various mission works. In the 1980's, a dual-service schedule was introduced, and the educational wing was completed in the 1990's, with impressive averages of 116 in Sunday School and 208 in worship.
Enterprise Christian Church has been graced by the impactful ministries of various leaders, including Clifford Trout, Teddy Leavitt, David DeWelt, John Sinclair, Lester Wells, William Morse, Joe Jewett, Richard Scott, David McKay and Dan Trautman, Tim Schmeck, Dax Bryant, Matthew Holmes, and most recently retired, David E. Bruce who just celebrated 22 years with us in 2023. The current ministry staff is Darin Frey, who joined the ECC family in fall of 2023 as the New Senior Pastor, and Shaun Erickson, joined us in 2019 as our Associate Pastor with Emphasis on Youth. These men continue the legacy of being dedicated servant leaders to our community.
The Church Built a Building
A Labor of Love
"You have such a beautiful Church." ... "Thank you, and the building is pretty nice too." Pastor Dave Bruce would often respond this way when the building of Enterprise Christian Church was being complimented. A not so subtle, but oh so necessary reminder that we are the church, the building is extra. However, it's true we do have a beautiful place to meet thanks to all the work put in by the church. From monetary gifts to donations of time through prayer and labor, this building will be used for the glory of God for a long long time to come.
ENTERPRISE — As John the Baptist baptized Jesus, John said, “He must become greater; I must become less.”
That’s the philosophy David Bruce and Darin Frey have adopted as Bruce steps back from his position as lead pastor at Enterprise Christian Church and Frey steps into the vacancy.
The transition
Bruce and Frey liken the change in leadership at Enterprise Christian to passing the baton among runners.
“There’s that warm-up period where you begin to run and then pass the baton,” Bruce said.
He said he and Melody [his wife] want to remain living in Enterprise.
“That can be a very scary thing to follow a guy who’s been here for 22 years,” he said. “You don’t want to be the unintentional interim minister. … We need to be able to transition from being the leadership here to being part of the community. That’s the key for us and I think it’s the key for his ministry.”
But he’s not going to be in Frey’s way. Beginning in January, the Bruces will disappear from the church, if not from Enterprise.
“Traditionally, a pastor says he’s going to retire on this day and then he’d be gone and then the church would try to find somebody. We elected to try to find somebody and work together. The great motto is, ‘He needs to become more while I become less,’ so this three-month period of time we’ve given ourselves has allowed for that to happen. It allows him to learn the congregation and the people to a degree. It allows me to be here in case there’s anything that he would like to learn that I can share or mentor.”
Frey is finding the transition helpful.
“I would say that over the past three months, when we’d have our morning staff meetings and devotion times, we didn’t even know what to talk about,” he said. “Then, all of a sudden the prayer requests would come in … and I get to download all this information whether it’s directly church-related or community-related about events that happen here, all these various things. Again, unless you’ve been in a pastoral job, you don’t really understand or appreciate all the nuances that can be there. I’m in that position of I’m supposed to be a pastor in this community that I don’t know, so I’m getting all this experience and that’s a huge blessing to me.”
He said the image of passing a baton are truly what is going on at Enterprise Christian.
“Those two hands with the baton, they’re taking the legacy into the future,” he said. “The whole idea there is you can’t spell succession without success. The visual there represents the successful succession that we’re looking for, so this baton is passing. This is not something that every church can do well.”