Welcome

In 1978, Pastors Sherman Williams (Fremont Community Church), Harry Heidebrecht (Evangelical Free Church, Fremont - now Bridges Community Church), and Doug Schultz (Trinity Christian Center, Newark), met together to start a ministers association in the three cities of Fremont, Union City, and Newark. This came out of a desire to have more meaningful fellowship among Pastors, and in so doing would enable the congregations to be more effective in reaching our community for Jesus Christ. For many years, the main emphasis was on monthly luncheon meetings where guest speakers would come from government, school, and business sectors of our cities, as well as ministry leaders who would equip and motivate the Pastors. In addition, there were regular Easter sunrise services, National Day of Prayer events, and other special gatherings where the congregations would come together to worship and pray. Also, the Pastors started meeting on an annual basis for a Prayer Summit which was a highly significant element to the development of the overall ministry that eventually became CityServe.

In 2003 there was a specific conclusion that "there is little or no conflict among congregations, but we don't have an operational unity. There is peace among the congregations but not as much unity in working together as we desire." There was further conviction that "our preference is to move from a maintenance mode to strategy, vision, direction, and action made in prayer, unity, and outreach."

Pastors started thinking more in terms of a basic city reaching premise: there is one church in the city -- made up of many congregations. City reaching is the whole church taking the whole gospel to the whole city.

Praying together as Pastors was deepening relationships among them and it was leading to growing unity to reach our cities, but there was a desire to move from independence as congregations to interdependence. As a result, Pastors committed to increased prayer meetings as well as the regular luncheons in order to implement working together.

There was a commitment that we would be both incarnational and proclamational, that it be a Serving Church and an Evangelizing Church throughout our three cities. We would commit to integrating the Good News and good works of the church in the name of Jesus into the life of the community in such a way that the community experienced social and spiritual transformation.

By 2006 we were incorporated as CityServe, Inc. This led to the development of several networks: Pastors Network, Youth Network, Intercessors Network, and Compassion Network.