The Beginning

It began as a burden. For our founding Pastor and his family, TimothHadden, it happened while reading an article sometime in 2011 that described the phenomenon of teenage runaways from all across America who somehow ended up on the streets of Portland, soon becoming addicted and broken after their arrival. He couldn’t shake that burden as he and his family traveled around the world preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For our Pastor’s wife, Amber Hadden, the Northwest had tugged at her heart since her early teenage years. So, when Pastor felt the call to come to Portland, her heart was already ahead of his in so many ways.

When they set out from Alabama in 2017, they had three young boys (ages 7, 3, and 1), and they had only been to Portland six days in their entire lives: three days to feel out the burden they had and three days to find a place to live. They had no idea where they would start a church in Portland, and did not know anyone in Portland (or the state of Oregon for that matter!) They came with radical faith and a burden to find hungry souls in need of a mighty God who still delivered, set free, and filled people with the power of His Spirit.

Upon arriving in the Portland metro, they worked a variety of jobs to adjust to the higher cost of living, enrolled two of their children in a school specializing in mainstreaming Hard-of-Hearing students into the listening and spoken language world (made possible by miraculous financial assistance), and spent countless hours driving through the city, praying for God’s direction on where to base their efforts to plant a church. The first time they went through Milwaukie from Oregon City to Downtown Portland along McLoughlin Blvd, they felt immediately “this is where you start.” 

The first location was tiny—just under 500 square feet on a second-floor building surrounded by other business suites. It wasn’t pretty, but it was a place. Pastor used to remind the few who started attending, “big things begin in little mangers.” They would be there for a little over a year and see God work extensively in numerous lives, some coming and others going, but God kept working. The situation was so unique that they had to hire a babysitter for their two youngest children every Sunday just to be able to minister and work with those who attended. 

Finally, with a great leap of faith, very little money to work with, an opportunity less than a mile down the road opened up on Roethe Road in Milwaukie. They signed a lease on a 998-square-foot building with street-side parking that sat on the edge of a car dealership’s lot. They managed to fit about 30 chairs in the central area, along with a small glass-lined room that doubled as a prayer room, one bathroom, a small room for children, and a tiny cubby next to a tiny kitchen that they liked to humorously describe as the “fellowship hall.” Within three months of being in this location, the church experienced a threefold increase in growth, attracting a multitude of visitors.

This is where they feel a “local church” was born.

One year later, they, along with a faithful group who called themselves members and fellow-pioneers of Antioch Northwest, would find another location less than a mile back toward the first location—this time, just off McLoughlin Blvd in a storefront building that was around 2,400 square feet. For three years, they would grow here, navigating the complexities of Covid lockdowns, sickness in the community, and financial strain. God helped us, and we did not lose one person to the illness, and the church continued to see growth, both in spiritual maturity and in numerical increase. Finally, after outgrowing that facility, another great leap of faith was made and we committed to taking over the additional space beside us that would add another 2,100 square feet for a larger sanctuary.

The church would continue to grow over the next three years at this location. Countless lives have been changed, miracles have happened, families have been restored, and addictions have been broken. We have seen God take this great church into places we never could have imagined, and, as we close this current season in this current location, we are now (as of August 2025) moving to a larger building, only this time leasing a church building that will allow us to comfortably grow and expand over the years to come until God brings us to a more permanent location we can call our own as we continue to reach the greater Portland Metro.

JUNE, 2026

After 10 years of faithful service, God tapped the shoulders of the Hadden family to step out in great faith and assume the pastorate of a church in the Birmingham, AL metro. Antioch Northwest unanimously welcomed Rev. and Sis. Bryan and Autumn Critcher family as the succeeding pastoral family.