Amidst our missional and church planting efforts, we must not forget about the stories of individuals.
Daisy. Arezou. Taryn. Rosie.
Unfamiliar names to you, but to CenterSet Church in San Francisco, California, these names represent new brothers and sisters in Christ.
One is a former Muslim who was radically saved and immediately baptized. Another, a skeptic for years who was involved in Buddhism and New Age spirituality, can now be found taking down the idols in her home after coming to faith in Jesus. The third saw her parents deported when she was sixteen-years-old and faced the daunting challenge of raising her two siblings alone. The last is a Christian for 10 years who invited scores of people to church and finally came to realize her need to publicly proclaim faith in Jesus through baptism.
This is the story of mission.
Ali Roohi, the pastor of CenterSet Church says, “We love celebrating victory reports of life transformation through Christ.” This exuberant joy stems from his first-hand knowledge of the new life Jesus brings. Roohi, born in the San Francisco Bay Area to an Iranian immigrant family, was raised Muslim but lived a secular life devoid of God. After coming to faith in Jesus, Roohi, then an engineer in the Silicon Valley, was prompted by God to plant and pastor a new church in the area. CenterSet Church launched in 2017 in an exclusive shopping community called Santana Row with a mission to reach the highly intelligent and upwardly mobile yet stunningly irreligious people of the Valley.
This is the story of church planting.
There are other names, of course—the names of the men and women God used to shape our lives in innumerable ways. They’ve authored bestsellers, pastored influential churches, addressed thousands. God is using these names to write the missiological conversation for the …
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