Our History

In March of 1955...


Clearwater Bible Church was planted as a fundamentalist, non-denominational, Bible church with the hope of reaching people with the gospel, making disciples, and edifying the saints. Clearwater Bible Church originally met in a rented lodge called Old Fellows Hall, but quickly built their first church building in 1956 located at 1325 Springdale St., Clearwater, FL.
When Reverend Bostrom retired 11 years later in 1966, his son John Bostrom, a graduate of St. Paul Bible College in Minnesota, became the next Senior Pastor of Clearwater Bible Church. After 11 years of ministry himself, John Bostrom retired, in 1977 and was replaced by Tom Izon, a graduate of Trinity Bible College. Tom pastored Clearwater Bible Church for 7 brief months from October of 1977 to May of 1978. When Tom left, John Bostrom returned to lead the church until a long-term pastor could be found.

On August 13, 1978, Clearwater Bible Church moved away from some of its fundamentalist roots to join the Evangelical Free Church of America and was renamed Evangelical Free Church of Clearwater. 4 months later on December 10, 1978 Charles G. Will became EFCC’s first pastor as an Evangelical Free Church. Under his leadership, in July of 1983 the church sold their building to Bethany CME because they realized they were not effectively reaching their community and began to rent Clearwater Y.W.C.A for corporate worship on Sundays.

After pastoring EFCC for 6 years, Charles resigned in December of 1984, and the church called Neal Brown, a recent graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, as their next senior pastor in January of 1985. The church hoped by hiring a younger pastor they might more effectively reach young people and young families. Just one month into Neal’s ministry, the church once again relocated to another temporary location, this time a storefront building on Drew Street.
The church gathered for corporate worship at this storefront until May of 1986, when they purchased 2.5 acres of land located off of McMullen Booth Road in Clearwater. The church met in a two-story house on the property, until November 15, 1987 when they began worshipping in a newly constructed building, which is where the church continues to gather for worship today.

Under Neal’s faithful leadership, the average attendance to corporate worship grew from 35 people to 165 people at its height, and the church engaged in a wide variety of ministries over the years. In November of 1995, Evangelical Free Church of Clearwater changed their name to Northwood Community Church to represent their hopes to be a church for the community of Northwood (the neighborhood in close proximity to the church). In July of 2009 Northwood completed construction on the back half of their building that functions as the gym, fellowship hall, church offices and classrooms.
In preparation for Neal’s retirement in July of 2019, Northwood called Mitchell Cruit, another graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, to be their next lead pastor. Mitchell began serving as the lead pastor in September of 2019 and had the privilege of serving alongside Neal for 4 months before Neal retired after 35 years of faithful pastoral ministry in December of 2019.

Between 2020 and 2022 due to the normal challenges of a pastoral transition as well as the challenges resulting from the social, political, and cultural unrest in our nation, Northwood like so many evangelical churches in America saw a drastic change in both membership and attendance. However since then, the Lord in his kindness has stabilized our church and even has begun to give us growth not just numerically, but far more importantly in spiritual maturity.

We have grown in our love for God’s Word and in talking about God’s Word with one another. We have become much more zealous for the lost and have grown in our faithfulness in evangelism. We have also grown in unity of the Spirit and clarity of purpose.
While a lot has changed since Clearwater Bible Church was initially planted, today so much also remains the same. Northwood still hopes to make much of Jesus and to bring his gospel to bear on every area of life for God’s glory among the nations. 
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