Brief History of Maple Ridge:

Maple Ridge Church was started in 1986 in Amherst, MA with the first name being Amherst Alliance Church. It was started by a group of students from the Alliance Christian Fellowship (a UMASS christian student group) and a support group from the parent church, Greenfield Alliance Church on Chapman Street in Greenfiled.  The Sunday morning services have been held in multiple location in Amherst and Hadley. The longest stay was at the Munson Library on South East Street in South Amherst which lasted 12 years. Until about 10 years ago the church comprised mostly of students from different ethnic backgrounds from around the world that attended UMASS. Since then it has become more of a local community based congregation with younger families and lots of children. Maple Ridge is made up of a very diverse group of people; people from 4 continents who live and attend worship from 12 surrounding towns/cities, some as far as 20 miles. 

In 2007 the church bought a property to serve our community called Maple Ridge Community Center. The vision has been to build a building that would be multi-purpose in use serving the local towns and congregation. The 28,000 sf+ building will have a 250-300 person auditorium/sanctuary, a 5000 sf Kids area, a 12,000 sf gymnasium and a 2500 sf cafe. We are currently in the renovation and fund-raising process.

The Christian and Missionary Alliance began as a deeper life and missionary movement initiated by Dr. Albert B. Simpson in 1887 to mobilize the underutilized lay forces and resources of the churches to "take the whole Bible to the whole world." He believed that a life completely yielded to Christ was one in which service to Christ would be of paramount importance. A person controlled by the Holy Spirit has no choice but to be involved in bringing the Good News to others, either as an overseas missionary or as a missionary at home.

The founder was reluctant to establish churches, preferring to call together Christians with a vision to evangelize the world but who remained in their local churches. However, the Christ-centered emphasis in teaching and the priority on missions made many people unwelcome in their denominations, causing them to form groups that for years were called "branches," not churches. By the mid-1970s, it became clear that The Alliance was a denomination in all but name, so with revised bylaws and constitution that reality was formalized in 1974.