ABOUT WESTGATE

Within three months of its first service, WBC had grown in attendance to about 40 people. Services were moved to facilities rented from a Seventh Day Adventist church in Beaverton. On Wednesdays, WBC met in spaces rented from an area Methodist church. By 1986, the Lord had prospered Westgate’s consistent outreach ministry such that average attendance increased to nearly a hundred people. Pastor Jaquith and the deacons of the church began earnestly to seek the mind of the Lord regarding the purchase of a permanent location. A year later, in August of 1987, the joyful people of Westgate Baptist Church moved into their own building atop the present site on Scholls Ferry Road in Tigard. One year later, in the fall of 1988, Westgate Christian School was established. Over the next several years, both church and school continued to grow numerically, as God worked mightily in the lives of His people.

In 1994, God made available to WBC the two-acre parcel of adjoining land to the south. This property was purchased without debt, and it provided much-needed room for future growth. In time, the home originally situated on that parcel was expanded and converted to an office and classroom building. A portion of the original residence was maintained as a “prophet’s chamber”—a comfortable oasis for visiting missionaries and preachers. Another classroom building was later added further south on the now-four-acre church property.