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Editors’ note: 

When the church in Jerusalem received a report of what God was doing in other regions of the world, it resulted in praise to God (Acts 21:19-20). With a view to facilitating similar praise, as well as prayer and missional thinking, this series reports on God’s work in the areas where The Gospel Coalition hosts regional meetings. See our earlier reports from Atlantic Canada, Hawaii, and New England.

“Doing ministry in urban San Francisco is like sowing seed over concrete. What works elsewhere simply doesn’t work here.” I will never forget hearing those words from my San Franciscan friend. They opened my eyes to the unique challenges the church faces in particular regions, and the importance of contextualizing the gospel.

Five years ago, I corresponded on these same issues with Jeff Louie, a TGC Council member and associate professor at the Western Seminary extension in the Silicon Valley. Jeff’s fascinating comments about the state of gospel-centeredness in the Bay Area were the original spark for this series. You won’t regret taking the time to read his comments.


Tell us a little bit about how God called you to serve in the San Francisco Bay Area. Are you originally from there?

I was born and raised in New York City, then slowly made my way west. After stops for seminary training and ministry in Dallas and Chicago, I moved to the Bay Area in 1990. I was a pastor on the west side of San Francisco for nearly 20 years and am currently an associate professor of theology at the Western Seminary extension in the Silicon Valley.

What exactly is the Bay Area? What regions are included?

The Bay Area is technically the Northern California counties that border San Francisco Bay. If you can image San Francisco Bay as the center of a clock, San Francisco is at 10 o’clock. Stanford and Palo Alto would be at about 8 o’clock (Mid-Peninsula). Between 7 and 6 o’clock would be the Silicon Valley and San Jose (South Bay). The East Bay, which includes the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, would be from 5 to 1 o’clock. The rest would be considered the North Bay.

The Bay Area is ethnically diverse, and generally affluent. The area should not be seen as sociologically monolithic. There are noticeable neighborhood distinctions every five miles. If one were to minister in the Bay Area, it would be important to understand of how diversity, affluence, and neighborhood culture all influence what ministry will look like in any given area.

What are some of the greatest challenges in ministry in your area? What particular cultural idols or areas of resistance to the gospel stand out?

In identifying the cultural idols of the Bay Area, I would distinguish between general and specific idols. General idols include materialism, individual freedom, liberalism, success, and innovation. Specific idols include gender expression (LGBYT community), education and stability (affluent and successful community), trendiness (millennial generation), survival (working class poor, drug addicted, and homeless). There is one major non-idolatrous factor involved in ministry here: the high cost of living.

All of the above combine to make ministry very difficult. For some who minister here, financial survivability is a real issue. For some established churches, the trendiness of the Bay Area makes you “yesterday’s church” quickly. For larger ministries, there is a constant pressure to keep ahead of the curve, so many ministries feel a need to keep evolving upward, or to hire a “star.” And of course, all ministries here face the constant challenge of seeking to be faithful to the gospel in the face of the surrounding cultural pressures. Some aspects of the gospel message are more controversial here than in other places. For churches or ministries that lack a foundation in gospel-centrality, it is almost inevitable to fall into either cultural accommodation or cultural retreat.

Where do you see God at work in the Bay Area? What encouraging trends do you see?

There are many things to be thankful for in the Bay Area! God is at work here.

First, church planters continue to pour into San Francisco. As the city has become a destination stop for hipsters and young high-tech workers, and as the trend toward urban church planting has continued apace, a number of church plants have taken hold and are bearing fruit among the younger generation. This surge of millennial-generation churches goes beyond San Francisco and can be found in the South and East Bay. (Examples include City Church, Reality, South Bay, and Resonate.)

Outside of San Francisco, there is growth and stability in a number of key church ministries. These ministries tend to be broadly evangelical, but leaning toward the conservative end of the spectrum. They have found a working model for ministry and are developing campuses and video campuses throughout the Bay. (Examples include Central Peninsula Church, Menlo Park Presbyterian Church, Westgate Church, and Venture Church.) There are also several strategic PCA and Evangelical Free churches that proclaim the gospel at the key universities, Cal-Berkeley and Stanford. There are also encouraging things happening in a number of PCUSA or former PCUSA churches around the region.

There are also a number of encouraging alliances around the gospel developing in the Bay Area. First, there are the networks of ministries supportive of The Gospel Coalition. Then there is the Norcal Network, consisting of dozens of churches on the East Bay that have a loose association with Master’s Seminary. Finally, there is the Barnabas Group whose motto is to “Transform the Bay.” They are made up of the largest evangelical churches and leaders in the Bay Area and have some financial Silicon Valley backing.

Tell us about the Bay Area Regional Chapter of The Gospel Coalition. What resources does it offer?

We started the regional chapter a number of years ago with the support of Travis Marsh, Justin Buzzard, and Toby Kurth. We organized a number of early gatherings in the Bay Area. Because of my health limitations, our work slowed down for a while. Today, a leader of the Bay Area Chapter is Andrew Hoffmann, an Evangelical Free pastor in the Berkeley area. It is our prayer that the upcoming conference can lead to further ministry opportunities for TGC in the Bay Area.

How can we be praying for the spread of the gospel in your region?

  1. Boldness to proclaim our strong and gracious message in the midst of the idolatry of the Bay Area.
  2. Encouragement for the ministries that deal with survivability issues.
  3. Wisdom for the growing ministries, that they would be ever clear on the gospel.
  4. More ministry to the working class poor, as the successful ministries here tend to focus on the educated, middle class to upper class, upcoming tech-workers, or millennials.
  5. The development of ethnic minorities to be ministerial leaders in the churches, so that their numbers represented in the pews are matched by the numbers on church staffs and lay leadership.

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.

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