Lighthouse began as a vision of those who saw that even with all the churches dotting the landscape of our world, there was still something missing.  With that in mind, Rev. Brian Rainwater was sent into the Snow Hill area by the Holston United Methodist Conference in December of 1999. His purpose was to plant a new kind of church.  From the beginning, Lighthouse was created with the vision of reaching those who had no church experience or had had not found one they were able to call home.  The services were more modern and the dress was casual.  The desire was to provide a comfortable setting to hear about and experience the presence of God.

 An arrangement was made with the Harrison Seventh-Day Adventist Church on Highway 58 to use their facilities.  Since the Adventists held their services on Saturday, the Lighthouse sign would go up on Saturday night for their Sunday services.  But by 2002, Lighthouse was outgrowing that meeting place and made the move to Wallace Smith Elementary School. 

            At Wallace Smith, the congregation continued what they had begun and continued to build on it as well.  All of this time, the search for property was underway, but there seemed to be so many obstacles in Lighthouse’s path.  The contract was extended at Wallace Smith from two to three years, but by the end of that time, property had still not been secured.  In fact, there seemed to be none anywhere that was or would be available.

            There were some other big changes that occurred during that time period as well.  There was a change of leadership as Lighthouse welcomed Rev. Richard Richter as pastor in June 2003.  Along with the adventure of pastoring Lighthouse, Richard also took over the weekly towing of the Lighthouse trailer affectionately known as “the church on wheels.” By this point, the congregation had become experts on unloading, setting up and reloading the trailer each week.   When the lease at Wallace Smith ended, Lighthouse made the move to a warehouse owned by one of our church members, located off Mountainview Road in Ooltewah.  The people of Lighthouse worked to transform the giant warehouse into an intimate worship space complete with a stage for the musicians and singers and classrooms for the children.  Blue tarp walls came to symbolize this phase in the life of Lighthouse and we were amazed at we could do when we put our efforts together.  We did such a good job fixing up the warehouse that it was rented just months after we moved in and we found ourselves at a crossroads, move to another warehouse or just hug and say we gave it our best shot.  Instead, the leadership of Lighthouse met and decided that God had brought us this far and would see us through. So, we moved to  warehouse number 2.  Just after making that decision, we found a piece of land. Many exciting things have happened along the way, but the most exciting by far, though, was the purchase of our own land!  The way that happened was truly a God thing!  In the span of one week,
Lighthouse went from seeing the land to purchasing it.  On Saturday, May 8, 2005, in less than 30 minutes, after six years of searching, Lighthouse purchased 16.79 acres of farmland on the corner of Snow Hill Road and Mahan Gap.