Construction commenced in 1927 while Sunday services were temporarily held in the Constitutional Club rooms and His Majesty's Theatre.[2]
On Saturday 14 January 1928, the church hall at 409 Adelaide Street was opened. Costing £19,000, it had two floors. The ground floor had shops, offices and social rooms, while the upper floor was a large hall. On 27 May 1928 the new pipe organ was used in services for the first time.[3] The intention was to use the hall for services while funds were raised over the following two to three years to enable the construction of the church itself on the Queen Street side of the property.[4] However, during the Great Depression, the funds to build the church were not raised and services continued to be conducted in the church hall.
World War II began, and in September 1941 evening services at the City Congregational Church were shifted to the late afternoon to accommodate the black-out.[5] In January 1942, the church hall was commandeered by the Australian Government Department of Munitions and Supplies. The Albert Street Methodist Church offered their church as a venue for services for the Congregational community.[6][7]
In October 1942, the congregation found a new home in a former Presbyterian church on Wickham Terrace. This church had been acquired in 1905 for extensions to Brisbane's Central Railway Station (the Presbyterian congregation established St Andrew's Presbyterian Church to replace their Wickham Terrace church).[8] As the extensions to the railway station did not take place immediately, the railways used the building as for storage of records until 1929, after which they leased it out as a gymnasium until 1941. The Congregational community leased the Wickham Terrace church building from 1942 to 1960, after which the church was demolished for road works.[9]
