The Forest City Foursquare Gospel Church had its beginning as an Independent Pentecostal Church known as the Gospel Light Tabernacle. A group of 25 people met on August 23, 1982 in a small store front building on Thomas Street in Forest City to begin to organize a ministry which they had felt that it was the will of God to begin. The first few months were filled with the task of organizing the ministry and learning what it was to walk as a new fledgling church. Those were tough days, but days filled with the glory of God. From the inception of the church it was evident that the anointing of the Holy Sprit was upon this work.

After these first few months the church begin to experience some pain, but it was growing pains. As God begin to send new people to the church, the church leaders begin to see the need purchase property where we could establish this work. We found our current property on Mitchell Street and after much prayer set out to purchase the property which had a 1500 sq.ft. building on it. At first the owner of the property would not even consider selling the property. The church continued to believe that God would work a miracle in this situation for they felt that this was where God would have us to establish our church. On the next Sunday morning there was a wonderful visitation of the Holy Spirit upon our servive and a word from the Lord concerning His will for our church. We obeyed the voice of the Lord and did the things which God had told us to do. The next week we contacted the owner again and they had a total change of mind. They sold the church the property and at a reduced cost. We declared at that time and still today, Blessed be the name of the Lord!

Through the love of Arlon & Betty Carver for the church (they financed the church purchase by using their home as collateral for the loan) we moved to our new property in March 1983 and set out at the task of remodeling this building and continued to see the Lord add to the church. By this time the church was now averaging around 50 people in our Sunday morning worship services. Pastor Ricky Poteat was still working in a local plant on the second shift which prevented his attending weeknight services. These 50 people prayed and came up with a proposal to give to the Pastor concerning hiring him as a full-tme pastor. In May 1983 Pastor Ricky went fulltime into the service of the Lord at the Gospel Light Tabernacle.

In the next couple of months God begin to orchestrate events that would bring us into contact with the Pastor of the Kings Mountain, NC Foursquare Gospel Church, Pastor Oscar Stalcup. As we continued to fellowship with Pastor Stalcup and his church and find out more about the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel it was if God was mending our hearts together. Again after much prayer and discussion with the Foursquare Church we felt that God was leading us to become a part of their church family. In 1984 our church became the Forest City Foursquare Gospel Church while retaing the slogan name of the Foursquare Gospel Light Tabernacle. This was then and continues to this day to be a "marriage made in Heaven" for our church. Pastor Ricky was ordained into the ministry of the Foursquare Gospel Church in May 1985 at Angeles Temple in Los Angeles, CA.

By this time in 1985 the church had continued to see growth and the blessings of the Lord. We had already had to build a front and rear Sunday School annex onto our existing building. As God continued to bless the church we saw the need of building a new sanctuary which was completed in June 1989. The building which began as a 1500 sq.ft. structure was now at over 5000 sq.ft.

In 1986 God had allowed us to purchase 6.5 acres of land directly across from our church. In June 1990 the church used part of this property to place a parsonage on. The parsonage became debt free in 1996.
 

In February 1998 we completed the building of a new Family Life Center. This building is 3200 sq.ft. and through the blessings of our Lord was built debt free. We were able to complete the paving our parking area and give God praise that this too was completed debt free.
 

In 2003 God graced us to able to build a new 4800 square foot building for our Teen & Children’s ministries. We look forward to the continued growth of both of these ministries.

We give praise to the Lord for all that He has done for us, every need that He has met. We give Him praise for the land and buildings, but most of all for the lives which have been touched through the ministry of our church. We have saw many souls saved, bodies healed, lives and marriages restored, lives energized with the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, saints encouraged and strengthened in their walk with the Lord, and God continues to do miraculous things. We praise Him for all that He has done and look to the future very excited about what God is going to continue to do in our midst. We also give Him praise for you, our church family, which God has graced us with!