This is the miraculous story of how our church moved from the Sutter Street location in San Francisco to our present location at 4585 Hilltop Drive in Richmond/El Sobrante as told by Reverend Joe Bishop. (Pastor from 1993 through 2002).

 

When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay Area on October 17, 1989, I never realized the impact it would have on the local congregation of the Apostolic Faith Church in San Francisco. The San Francisco congregation was in the 1227 Sutter Street building for almost 50 years. After the earthquake, a city ordinance mandated that all buildings be brought up to current code for earthquake stability as well as handicap access. After moving to San Francisco as pastor in 1993, this became a very heavy burden upon my heart, as these repairs would amount to approximately $250,000.00. The church had no savings and barely enough cash flow to pay the current bills. At a church business meeting, the members came to a unanimous decision that we should relocate the church and contact a realtor. I wanted to do the right thing. It was of such great magnitude and importance that it would affect every person in the congregation. Where would they worship? How would they travel to the new location if we moved? All these questions were of great concern to me and I wanted to know for sure that moving was the right thing and that it wasn't just me making a decision that the rest of the congregation would have to live with, so I began to pray and search the scriptures.

 

I purposed in my heart that I was going to seek the Lord's will and with His help I began to do the many things that are a part of selling old properties, and looking for new ones. I obtained a local map of the San Francisco Bay Area and drew a 10-mile circle of possibility around each end of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. I decided that would be the area that I would concentrate on as it would be a reasonable commute for existing members of the local congregation. I drove many miles every day, looking at commercial buildings, churches for sale, mortuaries and empty lots. The possibilities were endless and the range in prices was as low as $600,000.00 and as high as $1.5 million.

 

One day, while I was driving around, I found a promising piece of property on Moeser Lane. It was a piece of undeveloped land overlooking the city of El Cerrito. I took pictures of the property and presented the information to the local congregation. Everyone was very excited. It had easy freeway access and was very close to public transportation. I took a video of the area and presented the project idea to the leaders at our headquarters church in Portland. They agreed that it was a good plan and encouraged me to proceed forward. After about 6 months of preliminary work including soil testing and environmental reports, the city decided not to sell the property at all and to keep the plot bare. I was extremely disappointed and I began to question God's will.

 

Some time later, we looked at property on May Road in Richmond. That property seemed promising too, but it was not progressing well and the members of the congregation did not have the same enthusiasm for this piece of land. One day, while driving home, I saw a “For Sale” sign for some vacant land on Hilltop Drive. I immediately called the number and met with the real estate agent. She told me that they had just put up the sign that very same day. In a matter of a few hours, I had made an offer on the property, subject to the approval of the church board. In the course of negotiating the details and establishing the boundary lines, we also settled on the selling price, $400,000.00 for six acres of land! It was the best location and the most economical price of any property I had seen.

 

The owners of the property, the First Baptist Church of El Sobrante, had concerns about who we were and what we believed, never having heard of our church. They were hesitant to sell us the land and thought we might be a cult. I wrote a letter to them detailing our history and mission and recalled a time 15 years earlier when I was the pastor in Woodlake, California. I became acquainted with the pastor of a Southern Baptist church and we worked together at various outreaches in the community and established a food bank together. After contacting him, I discovered that his church in Woodlake was part of the same denomination as the church in El Sobrante, and asked if he would be willing to give a reference for our church. He willingly agreed and when the First Baptist Church of El Sobrante contacted him at their business meeting, he reassured them that we indeed, would be good neighbors. I never thought that my relationship with a pastor from Woodlake would play such a significant role of purchasing the property on Hilltop Drive. Obviously, God did.

 

When it seemed like our offer would be accepted, the parsonage on 36 th Avenue in San Francisco was put on the market. We had a buyer instantly, but it fell through. We had another buyer within a couple of days. It fell through. We had buyer number three. It fell through also. But, the Lord reassured my heart with the 60th chapter of Isaiah where it said,

 

“Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far , and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side. The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come: they shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto thee, the rams of Nebaioth shall minister unto thee: they shall come up with acceptance on mine altar, and I will glorify the house of my glory.” (Isaiah 60:3-7)

 

All of the first three parties who were interested in purchasing the parsonage lived in San Francisco. When buyer number four comes in, it's a cash sale and we end up selling the parsonage for more than the asking price. It closed in about 30 days and these buyers didn't speak a word of English. They were from China. Is that far enough? God is so good. The Lord gave these scriptures to me and it was a very personal thing. I did not tell my wife about them. I didn't tell the congregation about them. This was just something between the Lord and me. He showed me that He was going to take care of things and yes, we were going to build a new church. Yes, we were going to relocate and He was going to be in charge and it was going to be okay. If I could just follow, it was going to be okay.

 

Now, selling the parsonage generated the funds to buy the property on Hilltop Drive, but we had to build, and we had no money. Selling our old church was crucial in order to have the funds to build. We had already determined in our hearts that we were not going to go out on a limb and borrow money. We were going to know that the San Francisco church was sold before we ever started to build. I didn't know if we were going to build the parsonage first or the church first or how it would all work out. I just knew the Lord was going to do it some way. It turned out that the Lord made provisions for a parsonage first, but until it was complete, my family and I needed a temporary place to live. As I began to look in the area of Hilltop Drive, our realtor noted a house for sale right across the street from the church property. It had been on the market for about one and one half years. I found out I could re-use my G-I loan from the military and made an offer on the house personally. It was accepted and my family and I were able to move in with no money down and start making payments without using church funds. Again, God knew exactly what I needed and orchestrated all the details.

 

As time progressed, we signed the papers for the property and were waiting for some of the details to happen: escrow to close and for the deed to record. One day I was grumbling within myself because the title company said it was supposed to close on a particular day, and it didn't. They called back and said it would close the next day, and it didn't. It just didn't happen and within my own spirit, I was just kind of nervous and questioned why this was happening. At this same time, I was also dealing with finding nursing home care for my wife's mom. My wife and I were sitting in a waiting room one day going through the procedures to arrange for her care. I called home to check the messages off of the answering machine and again there was a message from the title company saying it didn't close. Frustrated, I told my wife, “I don't know what's going on. I don't know why it isn't closing. Why is this happening?” And then a thought struck my heart. I remembered some other scriptures that the Lord had given me from the book of Haggai:

 

“Thus saith the Lord of hosts; consider your ways. Go up to the mountain, and bring wood, and build the house; and I will take pleasure in it, and I will be glorified, saith the Lord… And the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Josedech the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and did work in the house of the Lord of hosts, their God, In the four and twentieth day of the sixth month, in the second year of Darius the king… Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, son of Josedech, the high priest; and be strong, all ye people of the land, saith the Lord, and work: for I am with you, saith the Lord of hosts.”  ( Haggai 1:7-8, 14-15; 2:4 )

 

I told my wife, “They promised me this is going to close tomorrow. What's tomorrow date?” And we concluded the next day was the 24th of January. I decided I was just going to wait and see if it would close. It did. They called me early in the morning and said it's all done. It had closed.

 

I began to check some other details relating to the church's purchase. The day that the First Baptist Church of El Sobrante called their business meeting to sell the property to us happened to be the 24 th of the month. When we sold our Sutter Street church in San Francisco, it happened on the 24 th day of the month and the Lord just began to reassure me over and over again. In the scriptures that He gave me in Haggai relating to the building of the Lord's house, the word of the Lord came to Haggai on the four and twentieth day of the sixth month or the four and twentieth day of the ninth month or the four and twentieth day of whatever month it happened to be. To me personally, that was a reassurance that nobody in this world could offer.

 

My concern now was that I'd committed myself and the congregation by buying this property. What are we going to do now? The church wasn't sold and we didn't have any money. Where was the money going to come from? How were we going to build what we had felt in our hearts was the right thing? Again, the Lord reassured me through the scriptures. The Sutter Street property was in a deteriorating neighborhood with no parking and lots of problems. It was not prime real estate. It had been at one time, but not anymore. How were we ever going to sell it? It was on the market for approximately 9 months with no one making an offer.

 

Then the one and only offer we ever received came from a group of people from Yemen . If you will look on your Bible maps as to where Yemen is, it is exactly Sheba . The Lord gave these scriptures in Isaiah to me two and one half years prior to the time that the building sold. Not only did God provide the people from China to purchase the parsonage, but God reassured my heart again, when he provided the people from Yemen to purchase the church. When the contract came across the fax machine on the 24 th day of the month from the people from Yemen , I just said, “Thank you Jesus!”

 

I knew in my heart that God was working. He never let me down. I believe the Lord was trying to reassure me that I was doing the right thing. And when I began to share this with our congregation, we began to watch on the 24 th of every month to see if the Lord would do something special. The scriptures that He gave me came back to my heart time and time again. It reassured me: “Go ahead, do it. It's the right thing. Don't be discouraged.” Now, with the San Francisco church sold, we had the new dilemma of where we were going to worship. We had to find a temporary facility where we could have church while construction took place on the new church building. My family and I had already moved to the house on Hilltop Drive and the new church parsonage was being built. I looked at 2 or 3 empty storefront locations in a nearby shopping center in San Pablo. As I was traveling back and forth, I noticed a separate hexagon shaped building on the perimeter that had once been a shoe store. Carlin's Shoe World had a “For Rent” sign. I called the number for the agent and as I began to tell him who I was and the name of our church, he asked, “Isn't your church on Sutter Street in San Francisco? I pass by the church every day on the bus.” Again, God reassured my heart that I was moving in the right direction, and allowed an agent to be used to encourage my heart. I expressed my interest to him and we discussed the possibility of renting the facility. Much to my dismay, I was told the rent would be $3,000 per month, and that he would need to contact the leaseholder. When I spoke with him, we realized that we had a common past. He used to operate McPhee's Shoes for Children before he sold it to the very same company that I worked for many years ago before I was ordained as a pastor. We knew and had business dealings with the same people. After I explained why we needed the shoe store and the circumstances behind it, John agreed to allow us to rent the building on a month to month basis for $1,000 a month. Again, God went before me and put all the pieces together.

 

Our God is good! He answers prayer and when you put your trust in Him, He will lead and guide you. When God gives you a promise out of His word, you can trust it. You can believe it. I didn't understand the first time he gave me the scriptures or what it was all about. I just knew that He was going to be in control and then He proved it. I have learned to depend more on Him and I have learned to trust more. God knew when I was raising my family and working in the business world that one day He would lead me to rent a shoe store for a church. When I was a pastor, God knew that my relationship with a neighbor would eventually lead me to use him as a reference for purchasing property in Richmond. God knew all about finances, and sent the right buyer for the parsonage in San Francisco. God knew that the people from Yemen would come to purchase the Sutter Street church. God knew exactly what He was doing! He has directed in my life and encouraged me every step of the way. He put all the pieces together for His glory and honor and I praise Him!