ChurchZip.com exists to help seekers locate the customary meeting places of congregations of the church of Christ and to learn about key aspects of their regular worship services. Our site gathers and presents basic geographical information from multiple sources—including Google, Yahoo, and others. When available, we also provide links to each congregation’s website or social media resources.
While it is not our intent to evaluate or judge any specific church practice, travelers often appreciate knowing in advance whether a congregation follows certain practices. ChurchZip.com provides this information to help visitors make informed choices. In addition, because most congregations worldwide have no web presence at all, ChurchZip.com exists to help seekers find churches that would otherwise be difficult to locate.
Over time, the meaning of the label “church of Christ”—and its colloquial variants such as “Church-o-Christ” or “CoC”—has evolved across the globe. In many regions, these names no longer reliably identify congregations that observe certain important practices.
For example:
Because of this, ChurchZip.com not only lists congregations with certain characteristics but also allows users to filter results—either including or excluding congregations based on specific attributes. For example, a traveler may choose to filter out churches with fewer than 10 attendees, or congregations that do not practice exclusively a cappella worship, regardless of the name on the sign.
Earle West, Franklin, TN
ehwest@gmail.com 908-216-5054
CLICK HERE TO ADD NEW RECORDS
The criteria we use to determine the listing of a church in churchzip.com should be considered absolutely "unofficial" and should only be considered a casual work, subject to errors and omissions of all kinds, and numerous ad-hoc contributors.
At the same time, we would very much like to receive corrections, and you can submit them yourself at any time. We use the following criteria to inform the operator whether a record should be made available (or not).
To correct the information for a particular church, display it in the search list or map, and click on "Edit" on the record to provide your changes.
We vet all submissions within a few days.
To add records CLICK HERE TO ADD NEW RECORDS. This procedure attempts to affix the location before adding details to the new record. This enables us to include listings of churches in countries not having standardized street addresses. It is my goal to have the largest and most accurate directory of churches of Christ, worldwide.
Users should be aware that we are unable to know about any of the more subjective beliefs, teaching, theology, fellowships, conventions, institutional affinity, and/or periodical alignment held by the church leader(s) or any members of any church. Importantly, the criteria above may very well be met by churches not using the nom de guerre "Church of Christ." Some church names we have seen include "The Lord's Church," and "The Way." We have also seen numerous alternatives in non-English-speaking countries.
We have no specific criteria regarding a church's provenance, restoration history, or state of fellowship among other churches.
There is no cost for users or churches to utilize this site! Please do not ever PAY someone to correct their information.
Updates and new records may be input on-line at any time by anyone. However, all records are quality-checked for very basic consistency before publishing. Errors do get through, and email is a good way to fix any point of confusion.
In the fall of 2000 a significant amount of US directory data was seeded into the project by Dennis Kelly (RIP), Searcy, AR, USA. Eighteen months later, non-US data was provided by Mac Lynn, Nashville, TN, USA.
In 2002, Salvador Cariga, The Philippines, Roy Davison, Alken, Belgium, Randy Matheny, Sao Jose dos Campos, Brazil, Theodore Lucas, India, Graham Fisher, the United Kingdom, Kim Voraritskul, Thailand, and Fielden Allison, Kenya provided guidance and/or data for the project.
In 2003, an unnamed-by-request team of people provided a very large database (20,000 records, since reduced to 16,000) of churches of Christ in India.
In early 2004, Wendell Broom provided a copy of his nearly 4,000 (since reduced to 3,600) churches of Christ in Nigeria. In May 2004, Lendal and Peggy Wilks brought their list of 107 churches in Mozambique and more than 1,700 churches in Malawi. In July 2008, Bren White provided a list of 319 French-speaking Churches of Christ worldwide—the work of Barry Baggott, Doyle Key, and Bren.
In February 2010, Ruth Zimmerman, Ontario, Canada, provided detailed records for 175 congregations in Papua New Guinea.
All records, from every source, are generally vetted and matched to our global database of latitude and longitudes for the nearest populated place, based on a US government gazetteer. Starting November 30, 2014, we are replacing most of our lat/long values with Google’s more accurate data. Thanks to Matt Prewett of the Saturn Road church of Christ in Garland, TX for funding county-level US data and all Canadian postal codes.
The United States government has provided a significant amount of free geographic data needed to support the unique find-within-radius feature of the site worldwide.
ChurchZip, a privately held organization, owns all software, data, presentation, intellectual property, and patents pending embodied in the system. Copyright protections are asserted to prevent misuse.
This site would have limited value without people like you who continually provide updates. Please check any listings you know about. Click here to update a listing.
In the spirit of full transparency, we list all similar directories and sometimes use them to verify new or changed listings or to harvest additional data. If you know of relevant directories, please write. Check our list of other directories.
Hundreds of thousands of seekers have been served with information about the congregation nearest them.
ChurchZip is a ministry, not a business.
Our goal is to make it easy to find the church of Christ anywhere. By offering each congregation’s own website, we encourage further inquiry into its practices.
ChurchZip does NOT include all churches of any kind.
We rely on congregational leaders to tell us whether they fit the criteria above. We ask no questions on matters of belief; we ask only about practices. Theatrical events, the presentation of skits, videos, and/or debates are not considered worship services.
Please write if you know of any listing incorrectly categorized.
We continually check all possible sources for changes. Trustworthy directory operators welcome corrections. Never pay anyone to correct their own records. We welcome your additions and corrections.
We are always looking for additional data describing churches worldwide. If you have directory information or updates, join the effort!
If you know of mission outposts or churches of Christ outside the United States, we would welcome updates. Congregations supporting such outposts may wish to share that information.
Our goal is to operate the most accurate directory of churches of Christ worldwide. We employ advanced technology and periodically update both rendering technology and automated data harvesting from all available sources.