A BRIEF HISTORY OF JPL BIBLE CHURCH... January 2002 to May 2008

In early September of 2001 Pastor Greg Chastain had served a church in the Coachella Valley for 6 years and Pastor Steve Sorensen had served this same church for over 13 years. He asked Pastor Steve to ponder planting a church together. Thinking God had other plans for he and his family in Denver Colorado Steve declined but said he would pray about it. Soon Steve sensed a very clear call from God to plant a church. On October 2, 2001 the two men formed an amazing partnership and the seeds of JPL Bible Church were sown.

They began meeting together, praying and working towards planting a church as teammates and friends. Steve likes to say, "Greg and I are very different in personality and gifting" but Jesus knew these differences could be combined to great effect. After many planning sessions with their CRM church planting consultant Scott Horn they felt ready but God still had a few tests for them. They announced their plans and began praying with two other families, the Martins and the Millerds, to start a church on the California coast.  Sparked by a brief conversation in the Kinko's parking lot in Palm Desert with long time local resident Jerry Santucci (who would later become an original elder with JPL) Pastor Steve sensed another clear call from God to establish JPL Bible Church right here in the Coachella Valley.

The Early Days of JPL

The first JPL Bible Church gathering took place in Palm Desert in Pastor Greg and Lindy Chastain’s backyard on January 4, 2002, with about 80 friends and family in attendance.  The kids played and lunch was served.  JPL Bible Church did it all again the following week and then on January 18, 2002, JPL went ‘public’ in the lounge room at the old Shadow Mountain Country Club in Palm Desert.  We distributed the kids and youth into three different classes including the club’s boardroom!  The band set up next to the fireplace and the congregation sat around circular tables snacking on munchies from the original JPL food table created by Karen Hammers.  Since then we’ve been about music, message, missions, munchkins and munchies.  JPL outgrew Shadow Mountain in six months and began meeting in Heritage Palms Country Club in Indio, CA. JPL met in the Heritage Palms Clubhouse and Pastor Steve preached on the dance floor under the large disco ball. Over the next 18 months the church added a paid part time youth minister and continued to grow. JPL also met in schools other locations.

Pastor Greg had been eyeing the old Cinema 3 theaters in Palm Desert for some time. Taking a big risk of faith a lease was arranged with a 30 day out clause for the nervous landlord!  The theater had been abandoned for several years and was completely stripped to the bare walls.  The electricity and water had not been on for three years!  A gift of land was sold and JPL used the proceeds to renovate this abandoned theater.  The next miracle happened the very week we signed the lease. The building was was just 3 big concrete rooms with nothing on the walls or floors and not one seat.  A church member happened to notice a pile of theater seats in a theater parking lot in Palm Springs. Turns out they were renovating the theater. We asked if we could have the seats and they gave us over 500 seats, many fixtures and curtains all of which saved thousands of dollars. And the seates were just like the ones that had been taken out of the Cinema 3 Theaters years earlier!  We installed over 400 seats in two different theaters. Pastor Steve carried every one of them at least once at one point or another. Many people joined in and helped transform that place.  Greg Underwood was a hero during that season, faithfully showing up every day and doing whatever needed to be done. Many others, too numerous to mention, worked and worked to transform those theaters into an amazing church that is still going today.

A Test Of Faith

The process of working with the city of Palm Desert was not an easy task and completing the construction was supposed to take about 2 months. During that time JPL had scheduling conflicts at Heritage Palms and decided to make a short 6 week long transitional move to Washington Charter School on Portola street in Palm Desert until the theaters were completed. That short move (It cost twice as much and took twice again as long) lasted 4 months and JPL actually shrunk to less than 100 people. The devil was trying to kill us. Just when we were talking about our need to double the budget and double our attendance in order to fill the theaters we shrunk by 50% in both areas! But God had us right in the palm of his hand. Those were some trying times to say the least!  But we had faith that God had called us to the theater. Pastor Greg says, "God always provided although looking back I can't say exactly how."

JPL Goes To The Theaters

JPL moved into the theaters in February 2004 and it was a definite ‘wow’ moment. Now there was a concert type theater for the adults, a big jamming open room for the youth, and a Disneyland like theater for the kids and a couple of spare rooms for the pre-school.  Let’s just say Jesus had blasted us into a new atmosphere. One month later we held an opening dedication and the theater was packed to overflowing with adults and kids!  That fall we started began steady growth that culminated in two wonderful and full Christmas Candlelight services in the theaters.

Matthew 19:26

Only ten months after getting into the theaters on December 15, 2004 Jonathan Brown told our youth pastor of a church going up for sale and Pastor Greg immediately sensed God wanted us to buy it. We began to seek God and pursue the property even though we had zero money. One month later and to the amazement of many doubters by early January 2005 JPL had purchased the 5 acre campus for cash. It is now the first of three JPL campuses and it is right on Monterey Ave. in Rancho Mirage, just 2 miles north of the theaters. The theaters are now part of a sister church Champion Life Church which is Pastored by Eddie and Tammy Windsor.

JPL Finds a Home

The membership of JPL again stepped into action and spent a couple of months reconfiguring and renovating the new campus hoping t get in by Easter. However the building wouldn’t be ready for another week, so we launched the Grand Opening with an outdoor service on Easter Sunday March of 2005. We had to meet outside on the grass and it was a good thing we did because that first outdoor service had over 700 people in attendance! This was truly another “wow” event! It was a festival atmosphere complete with a release of hundreds of white balloons to symbolize our risen Lord Jesus!  By September of 2005 the room that seats 400 is now at capacity so we added a second service. JPL is a healty church in a healthy environment and healthy things natually grow. JPL has added a full time staff of Youth and Children’s Ministry Directors serving babies to grade 12.  A systems and building crew is working full time to build and complete the campus to accommodate the new people flowing into JPL each week.  Full time and part time pastoral assistants and many, many daily volunteers are ministering with joy, peace and love 7 days a week.  During a six week period in late spring July of 2005 JPL baptized 38 new believers. The folks at JPL are working as fast as possible to keep up with the blessings God is sending.  JPL has a finished a master plan for the campus which was originally commissioned using the firm of Dominy and Associates. The first phase will be the Youth Center and the second phase a Worship Center, followed by the resource center. However our priority is people not just buildings and we are seeking God and standing ready for Him to lead us in the timing of every phase.

The letters J P L stand for three qualities that Pastor Steve believes are essential in any ministry: joy, peace and love. Joy means people are having fun.  Peace means that there is good leadership.  Love means that we are working with friends and encouraging what we call, “relational Christianity."  As we say at JPL "when God is in the house, anything can happen!"

Welcome to the JPL of Tomorrow

It is the vision of Sr. Pastor Steve Sorensen and Pastor Greg to lead JPL in continued health and growth.  We are raising up 100 pastors to lead multiple groups to do what we like to call "Relational Christianity."  We believe God gave us a goal to build small groups with a large purpose! JPL is directing attention and resources to developing three mission stations overseas.  We currently support missionaries locally, in Asia, and in the former Soviet Union.  We hope you join us for this amazing journey that God is taking JPL Bible Church on throughout this valley and to the nations of the world.

We invite you to visit JPL and please say hi to Pastors Steve, Pastor Greg and the JPL Staff and let them know you read this brief history about JPL...

 

May God bless everything you do!