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A HISTORY OF JPL BIBLE CHURCH ... January 2002 to 2008 October 2nd 2001 Pastor Greg Chastain and Pastor Steve Sorensen began meeting together, praying and working towards planting a church as teammates and friends. Steve likes to say, "Greg and I are very different in personality and gifting" and Jesus knew these differences could be combined to a great effect. After many prayer and planning sessions with their CRM church planting consultant Scott Horn and two other families, the Martins and the Millerds JPL Bible church was ready to be launched. The Early Days of JPL The first JPL Bible Church gathering took place 3 months later in Palm Desert in Pastor Greg and Lindy Chastain’s backyard on January 4, 2002, with about 80 friends and family in attendance. The kids played and lunch was served. JPL Bible Church did it all again the following week and then on January 18, 2002, JPL went ‘public’ at the Shadow Mountain Country Club in Palm Desert . We distributed the kids and youth into three different classes including the club’s boardroom! The band set up next to the fireplace and the congregation sat around circular tables. Pastor Steve preached on a dance floor with a disco ball and our original pre-service favorite donut table called the "Garden of Eat'n." JPL outgrew Shadow Mountain in six months and began meeting in Heritage Palms Country Club in Indio, CA. Again Pastor Steve preached on the dance floor under the large disco ball. Over the next 18 months the church added a paid, part time youth minister and continued to grow. JPL also met in schools and other locations. Pastor Greg had been eyeing the old Cinema 3 theaters in Palm Desert for some time. We took a "risk of faith" which included a lease with a 30 day out clause for the nervous landlord. We had less than half the money needed for restoration since the theaters had been abandoned for several years and was completely stripped to just the bare concrete walls. The next miracle happened the day after we signed the lease. The building's interior consisted of 3 large, empty concrete rooms, not one seat. A church member happened to notice a pile of theater seats in a theater parking lot in Palm Springs . It turns out they were renovating the theater. We asked for and were given over 500 seats, many fixtures and curtains! And the seats were just like the ones that had been taken out of the Cinema 3 Theaters years earlier! Over 400 seats and fixtures fit exactly in two different theaters. Legend has it Pastor Steve moved every seat at least once during that remodel. Each and every night for months, people joined in and helped. Greg Underwood was a hero during that season, faithfully showing up every day and doing whatever needed to be done. Many others, too numerous to mention, but forever to be appreciated, worked and worked to transform those theaters into what is now a part of our legacy. That location still remains a place of worship today as our sister church, 'Champion Life.' A Test Of Faith The process of working with the city of Palm Desert was not an easy task and completing the construction was supposed to take about 2 months. During that time JPL had scheduling conflicts at Heritage Palms, so we decided to make a short, four week transitional move to Washington Charter School in Palm Desert. What was supposed to be a short move became o four month wait from delays with the city of Palm Desert and it cost us twice as much! It seemed like the devil was trying to stop us. But God had us right in the palm of his hand. Those were some trying times to say the least but we stayed faithful. Pastor Greg says, "God always provided.... although, looking back I can't say exactly how, but, he did."
JPL moved into the theaters in February 2004 and it was a definite ‘wow’ moment. We had all we needed, a concert type theater for the adults, a big jamming open room for the youth, and a Disneyland like theater for the kids, and a couple of spare rooms for the pre-school. Let’s just say Jesus had lifted us into a new atmosphere that was available 24/7/365. One month later we held an opening dedication and the theater was packed to overflowing with adults and kids! Later that year, in early Fall, we started to see a steady growth that culminated in two wonderful, packed Christmas Candlelight services with more then 500 people in attendance. Matthew 19:26 We all thought we would be in the theaters for years and even dreamed of how to purchase the entire shopping center. But as usual God had other plans when just ten months later, on December 15, 2004, our youth pastor told Greg of a local church going up for sale. Pastor Greg immediately sensed God wanted us to buy it. We began to seek God and pursue the property even though we had zero money. One month later and to the amazement of many doubters by early January 2005 JPL Bible Church had purchased the 5 acre campus for cash. It is now the first of three JPL campuses and it is on the West side of Monterey Ave. in Rancho Mirage, just 2 miles north of the theaters in Palm Desert. JPL Finds a Home The families of JPL again stepped into action and spent a couple of months reconfiguring and renovating the new campus. This time things went as scheduled and we held our "Easter 2005 Grand Opening" service. We met outside on the grass and it was a good thing we did because our capacity maximum inside is 400 and that outdoor service had over 700 people in attendance. This was truly another “wow” event! It was a festival atmosphere complete with a release of hundreds of white balloons to symbolize our risen Lord Jesus! By September of 2005 the room that seats 400 was at capacity so we added a 9:00am "Acoustic Contemporary Service" (read not so loud) that helped ease the crowded 11:00am "High Energy Service" (read louder). JPL is a healthy church in a healthy environment and healthy things naturally grow. With that growth, we were able to bring on a full time staff of Youth and Children’s Ministry Directors, serving babies to grade 12, along with a hundred "Ministry Partners." We hired a systems and building crew to work full time to build and complete the campus to accommodate the new people flowing into JPL each week. Full time and part time pastoral assistants were brought on and many, many daily volunteers were ministering with joy, peace and love 7 days a week. We were also baptizing hundreds of new believers. The JPL of Today! The folks at JPL are working as fast as possible to keep up with the blessings God is sending. JPL has a finished master plan for the campus. There will be three phases to complete our goals. The first phase will be the Youth Center and weekday daycare facility. The second phase will be a Worship Center that will produce multimedia events that can be viewed anytime and anywhere. The third phase will be an amazing resource center for people to learn about Jesus. The "Resource Center" will be a true learning institution, an extension campus for Biblical studies, a School of Worship Arts and many classes to train leaders with the skills needed to build the kingdom of God. As always our priority is people. These buildings are the tools to house and train the people. We are seeking God, standing ready, and faithful that God will lead us in the timing of every phase. The letters J-P-L stand for JOY, PEACE and LOVE. These three qualities are essential in any ministry and are highly visible at JPL. Joy means people are having fun. Peace means that there is effective leadership. Love means that we are working with friends and encouraging what we call, “relational Christianity." As we say at JPL, "when God is in the house, anything can happen!" Welcome to the JPL of Tomorrow! It is the vision of Co-Pastors Greg Chastain and Steve Sorensen to lead JPL in continued health and growth. We have a goal to recruit 100 Ministry Partner Leaders to care for and lead multiple teams to do what we call "Relational Christianity." We believe God gave us a goal to build small groups with a large purpose! JPL is directing attention and resources to developing mission stations overseas. We currently support missionaries locally, in Asia, and in the former Soviet Union . We hope you will become a Ministry Partner and join us on this amazing journey called JPL Bible Church . God is using us to change this valley and preparing us to change the nations of the world. We invite you to visit JPL and please say hi to Pastors Steve, Pastor Greg and the JPL Staff and let them know you read this brief history about JPL.
May God bless everything you do!
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