The Bay Area is the best place in the world! Of course, that is because I grew up here and minister here, but it really is a unique place to live. People from all over the world live in the San Francisco Bay Area, which makes ministering to young people unique as well. Sometimes it feels like I am a missionary serving in a different country that has no concept of Jesus.
I have spent the last two decades ministering to middle and high school students in a small town called Castro Valley, which is 30 minutes south of San Francisco. Over the years, I have seen the needs of our students change, and I have seen a need for the church to change to meet those needs. Most youth workers agree that we are serving in a very different culture than we were 20 years ago.
But these changes will require unprecedented unity.
My desire to see the Bay Area youth pastors and leaders come together started back in 2010. I felt the Lord urging me to bring leaders together, but I had no idea how to do it nor did I understand why. Over time, I realized churches were divided, with everyone working independently instead of sharing resources and relationships. In fact, it was common for youth groups to be in competition with one another. The New Testament speaks a lot on the need for unity in the church, which tells me this must have been just as much of an issue almost 2,000 years ago as it is today.
At the time of the Lord's call to unite the churches, I was a volunteer in our student ministries. I worked as an administrative assistant in the student department and had no idea how I was supposed to gather the troops. I didn't feel that I was in any position for people to listen to me and struggled with this for several years. But the call never left my mind. The Lord did a lot of work in me during those in-between years. Being a woman in ministry leadership is difficult, but you can't ignore God when He calls.
Over the next decade, God shaped me for ministry leadership. It is funny; when God wants you to do something, He will provide the means for you to do it. I started with a Bay Area girls conference for six years, which enabled me to connect with churches and learn a lot about what youth pastors need.
I partnered with TBC (Transforming the Bay for Christ), an organization that had my same heartbeat to connect the Bay. This partnership enabled me to sit under leaders from around the Bay and see what God was doing in and out of the church. It was amazing to see the work of the Lord being lived out in so many different walks of life.
In 2019, TBC's CEO Nancy Ortberg asked me to put together a gathering for youth pastors. We had spoken several times before about our passion for seeing youth leaders united. From those conversations, we developed our current organization of youth leaders called Bay Area Youth Leaders Coalition. This team is made up of 10 youth pastors and leaders from around the Bay Area with the same heartbeat of unity. We have made it a point to not reinvent the wheel, recognizing that there have been many who have gone before us for decades in networking and ministering in the Bay Area. We created a mentor team made up of leaders that have gone down this same road and can speak into our lives.
It is a beautiful thing when the church comes together. When we put aside our differences, we can see each other made in the image of God and can work together in unity for the sake of the Gospel. Our team has many hopes and dreams, but whatever the future holds we know that unity in Christ is our foundation.
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Sheri is the Founder and Executive Director at Illuminate The Bay and Minister to Students at Redwood Chapel.