Solo Pastor at Alameda CRC (Alameda, CA)

Alameda is an island community across the Bay from San Francisco and right next door to the city of Oakland. Our horizon is framed by coastal foothills, the Bay Bridge, and the San Francisco skyline. Everything that an urban metropolis has to offer is within easy reach, and Alameda itself has a thriving downtown with a wide variety of restaurants. It is a place of parks, farmers markets, and families out riding bicycles. It is a city that somehow retains a small town feel. We have a true Mediterranean climate with moderate temperatures all year long. 

Alameda CRC is one of the oldest churches in California and we will be celebrating our hundredth birthday in 2024. We have changed much over the years. We have gone from being a very Dutch, very Christian Reformed church to being a church with members from many religious and cultural backgrounds. In the latter half of the 20th century, we suffered two splits that left us greatly reduced in number, but today we are a stable, loving, and mutually supportive congregation. 

For many years, we have been the calling and supervising church for the Alameda Korean Church, a small Korean language congregation under the leadership of Pastor Andrew Narm. AKC worships in our building, sharing Communion with us each month and meals after worship at least twice a month. We have a choir with members from both churches, led by a shared music director.

Our church is in a neighborhood of happily unchurched people who dwell in million-dollar homes, yet within three miles there are people living in the deepest poverty and many are homeless. It is a place where Christ and his kingdom are desperately needed. We are a small but growing, and gifted congregation that is doing its best to follow where Christ leads. We are in solid financial shape and have just completed two years reflecting on our past and looking toward our future through the Renewal Lab process. That work led us to develop new mission and vision statements, in which we have tried to express our love for God and our desire to serve all of our neighbors:

Our Mission: To worship and serve the God who loves us and proclaim the good news of Jesus.

Our Vision: Our vision is to be a joyful family of faith anchored in God’s word, reaching out to our neighbors with love and compassion, as we offer hope and meaningful life in Christ.

Our discussions as a congregation revealed that at heart we long to remain a traditional church, even though we recognize that we live in a place and at a time where traditional churches are struggling. We have felt pressure from our denomination and from experts in church growth to discover a mission and to focus our energy on some unique form of engagement with our community, but after much prayer and soul searching, we have not discerned that our Lord is leading us toward any single ministry. We are now looking for a pastor with vision and practical leadership skills to help us find and grow into the future God has planned for us. We are looking for a pastor with a heart for congregational care, who loves God’s Word and is willing to disciple others, a pastor whose preaching is faithful and engages new as well as mature believers.

For more information contact Search Team Chairperson, Luann Sankey, by email at [email protected] or by phone at (510) 523-4054, and please see our church profile and the pastor’s job description below. 

https://alamedacrc.com/