Fresno RPC

Location: Fresno, Calif.

Presbytery: Pacific Coast

Organized: 1920

Membership: 80 communicant; 26 baptized

Pastor: Tim McCracken

Web Site: www.fresnorpchurch.org

History

Whether due to Manifest Destiny or the dust storms in the Great Plains, Covenanters came to California.

2008 marks the 90th year since a small group of Reformed Presbyterians living in and around Fresno were organized as a mission station. Homes, schoolhouses, churches, and even a tent housed the group until 1928, when the tent was deemed unsatisfactory and the congregation decided to erect their own building. Eventually, they moved to a different property and took their meeting place with them (never mind that it was no longer a tent; they just up and moved it). Years later, they moved to their current location, this time leaving their building behind and occupying another.

In June 2008, it will have been 20 years since Pastor Tim McCracken and his wife, Lori, came to Fresno.

Ministry

Recently, school buses have been dropping off crowds of elementary children next to the church and the adjoining McCracken home, causing the church to consider how God might use them in these neighbors’ lives.

The state prison facility at Corcoran has also become a place of ministry. Following months of visits and correspondence with several inmates, Pastor McCracken has gotten permission to conduct monthly Bible studies there. Other people from the congregation hope to join him in conducting these studies, the first of which drew 12 inmates who eagerly studied God’s word for 2 hours.

The Fresno RPC along with two other churches is sponsoring the second annual California Conference on Reformed Theology. More information can be found at www.calreformed.org along with Pastor McCracken’s sermons at www.sermonaudio.com (also linked from www.fresnorpchurch.org).

Throughout the fall, about 10 men have been gathering regularly to discuss and encourage leadership within the church. One of the elders, Norman Goehring, has been suffering the progressive effects of Lou Gehrig’s disease, while Bill and Willa Copeland’s family has struggled in the aftermath of their son Robert’s ranching accident that placed him in a coma. Please pray as the congregation searches God’s heart concerning leadership and as they uphold many with physical and spiritual needs.

This varied congregation of teachers, students, grandparents, babies, electricians, those involved in the arts, computers, foundry work, doctoring, geology, schools, and homeschooling invites you to come experience California’s beaches, mountains, National Parks, and their many welcoming faces.