“Emmanuel” is an ancient term meaning “God with us.”  More specifically, it comes from the Hebrew text of Isaiah 7:14 which says,

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Roughly 700 years later, Jesus Christ was born into the world in the small town of Bethlehem, and we read that he was the fulfillment of this promise that God is with us in Matt. 1:21-23.  This scripture says,

She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

We call ourselves Emmanuel Bible Church because we believe that God is with us today!  We believe that God has not left us alone in the world to figure it out for ourselves, but Jesus Christ came as a representation of God’s activity in our world.  And Jesus Christ is alive and active today, and He is present in our church.  Through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, we have access to God and believe that we can experience new life in Him.

Knowing that God is with us changes the way we do things at Emmanuel Bible Church.  We come with great expectations that the Lord is going to do something great every time we gather together whether on Sundays or at our weekly Connecting Groups.  This realization is the hope that we build our church’s mission.

Emmanuel Bible Church has a history that goes back to 1908.  That year, a group of Swedish immigrants united with a church called Swedish Tabernacle to form Fremont Missions Church.  One year earlier, the Ballard Mission Church was formed from a branch of Seattle’s First Covenant Church.  In December of 1929, these two churches joined together to form one new church called Emmanuel Tabernacle (later to be renamed Emmanuel Bible Church).  Much of the building that EBC meets in today was built during this time, although the Christian Education wing and the gymnasium followed later.  The facility is completely owned debt free by EBC.

Emmanuel has a wonderfully rich heritage of overseas missions work.  Many people have been financially remunerated through the ministry of the church, and we still support several overseas missionaries today.  Our vision for the future of missions at EBC is to put more and more effort into reaching the people who live in N. Seattle, and getting every member of Emmanuel Bible Church to consider themselves a missionary to the world surrounding them (connecting to our community).  We hope to scatter people around Seattle who are on mission together and want to see the Gospel of Jesus Christ permeate our city.

Currently, we rent the gymnasium half of our building to another church called Calvary Chapel.  They are an Assembly of God church roughly the same size as Emmanuel and they have Sunday evening services in our worship center.  We also rent space to other church groups, Christian organizations, local schools and home schools, and other community based programs occasionally.