Brief History of Bethesda Community Church
To God be the glory for the great things He has done. After investing approximately 14 years of active ministering time in Independent Community Church in Richmond under the leadership of Pastor Tommie Bradford. While in Richmond, along with his other assignments within the church, the Lord used Pastor Johnson to start what is now known as Independent Prison Ministry. This is the group he led to establish church services and bible studies in San Quentin State prison, San Francisco city jail, San Bruno city jail and in Richmond city jail. These activities kept him busy until he moved to Antioch California in 2001. The Lord blessed us to move to the city of Antioch in December 2001.
The Lord laid it on Pastor Johnson and Charity Ejomah’s heart to start a new work for the kingdom of God while they were still in Richmond, but the accident that nearly took his wife and daughter’s life the day after moving into their new home on December 9 th , put the plan on hold for a while. Note that enemy may succeed in delaying your dream but he cannot delete it entirely. After a period of visiting a few churches in the Antioch area, the pastor and his family decided to start Sunday morning fellowship in his living room in July 2003. There we met Sunday after Sunday to worship the Lord. It gave the pastor an indescribable opportunity of one on one to minister and teach his family for almost two years. Early in 2004, the pastor met the Director of Antioch Press a man by the name Mr. Allen Payton who gave the church a much needed publicity in his city wide news paper called “Antioch Press”.
In May 2004, the Lord enabled us to secure our 50(C) (3) which is the Federal tax exempt status with a fully functioning Board of Directors. In 2007, we had to close the church doors when I mistakenly moved to southern California and empowered an associate pastor to care for the flock of Jesus Christ. It was a terrible error on my park. When we were forced to move back to northern California due to overwhelming circumstances we experience spiritual homelessness. For 7 years, we went from church to church and ended up spending about 4 years to assist Divine faith Ministry under the leadership of Pastor Matthias Esoimeme. Again, after a period of prayers between Pastor Charles Cole and my-self under a shady tree in the city of Vallejo in September 2014, the Lord gave us the second green light to re-launch the ministry in my living room in the city of Antioch with my family and a few friends. God has been faithful to us and will continue to be by his mercies.
Roots of the Ministry:
Bethesda Community Church is a Pentecostal non-denomination whose roots are in Bethesda Gospel Mission, Irri, Isoko LGA, Delta State, Nigeria. The late Archbishop Dr. Christian Apena was the spiritual father and mentor of this ministry.