Have you ever experienced a life-changing season in your life? One that you look back on as having changed the trajectory of your entire life?
For me, one of those life-changing times was the summer of 1996. I had just finished my first year of college and was serving at a Christian youth camp in upstate New York. Toward the end of that summer, prior to entering my sophomore year, I went to visit my girlfriend Laurie’s family in Northern California. I had never been out West, and all I knew about California was based on what I had seen on TV or heard in a Beach Boys song.
But as the saying goes, that was only the beginning. Laurie and I were married in 1997, and we began to visit her family in California regularly. Almost every time we visited, we found ourselves praying for the area. We were burdened for the people we spent time with who didn’t know Jesus and others who grew up in church but, for a variety of reasons, had walked away.
In 2016, while visiting for the holidays, God pricked our hearts, and we felt like this time, He was asking us to do more than pray. Over the next 18 months, we prayed, built a team, and moved to Yuba City, California, together with five other families. Once on the ground, after a season of engaging the community and making disciples, Citywalk Church held its first public service on January 27, 2019.
Over the last 6 years, God has moved in incredible ways, and we have seen many people turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God.
Since moving to Northern California six years ago and planting Citywalk, I have learned quite a few lessons that I believe will help us reach this region with the good news of Jesus Christ. Here are just a few of them.
- Northern California is not the California you see on TV or hear about from influencers on social media. NorCal. is a region of the country full of rugged beauty and endless adventure. You have never heard of most of the towns that make up this great region outside of the greater Sacramento area, but they are jewels that, once you visit, you can’t wait to get back to.
- Many of the cities in NorCal. at one time had at least one dynamic SBC church that was impacting the community with the Gospel. Today, many of those churches are struggling without hope of change, while others have already closed.
- To reduce the percentage of lostness in Northern California—whether in the political heart of Sacramento or in small towns like Willows with just a few thousand people—will require the establishment of multiple neighborhood churches.
- Since this part of the country is not on the radar of most potential church planters or church networks, it is vital that individuals and churches commit themselves to raising up the next generation of church planters from within.
Along with learning these and other lessons, I have fallen in love with this region over the last six years and believe deeply that God is doing a work of revival in the big and small towns that make up this area. I am thankful for the CSBC and their commitment to planting and replanting churches in NorCal. Just this week, I got the chance to interact with a couple who is replanting a church in Chester, California. Though the work at times is challenging, they are committed to helping a church that was on the verge of dying become a lighthouse in the community for many years to come.
As you think of Northern California, would you pray with me that God would raise up the resources and leaders that we need to plant and replant churches that will impact their neighborhood with the Gospel?
If God pricks your heart for this region the way He did mine a few years back, I encourage you to take a step and join in on the adventure of what God is doing in NorCal. We have a place ready for you.
