Our Story

We’re a church planted in beautiful Oakland, California that has members from all over the San Francisco Bay Area, including Berkeley, Emeryville, San Francisco and beyond.   We believe that Convergence is the picture of God’s Kingdom converging with our lives, changing us to change the world.  But there’s so much more to why we’re here and how it all began.

Beginnings

(From Pastor Bobby Lee)

These are significant moments in my life that have led to the birth of Convergence…

I first came to know Jesus as my Lord and Savior when I was 13. When I gave my life in complete surrender to Him, I asked Him one question, “What can I do for you?” In that moment, I heard the voice of the Lord for the first time. He said to me, “Tell the world about me.”

When I was 19 years old, I was leading and pastoring a youth group of a Korean church in Tustin, CA. It was a small group of about 15 teenagers who were all Korean. One Saturday night, I had a dream. In my dream I was walking up to the pulpit in the same room that I preached in every Sunday. The difference was that the room was completely filled with young people from every culture I could imagine. This dream birthed in me a heart, vision, and passion for diversity in church.

More than 10 years after that dream, I heard another word from the Lord. I was sitting in a coffee shop reading and writing when I heard, “Convergence… My Kingdom needs to converge with yours.” At first, I had no idea what God meant or what he had in mind. I received it as an affirmation, not as a calling.

Months after hearing “Convergence” from God, I found myself wrestling in a state somewhere between discontent and a compelling future. Over the next year, I found myself seeking God, talking with Terry, talking with the church planting director of the PSWC, reading scripture, feeling a sense of being ‘called out,’ resigning as executive pastor of my church, and at the church planter assessment center for the Evangelical Covenant Church. I went through the entire assessment unable to answer questions of strategy or plans and realizing that all I had was a vision: Convergence… God’s Kingdom converging with ours and diverse people uniting together in Christ. I didn’t even know where to go. I still remember wanting to throw up the night before the results of the assessment were shared with us. I thought to myself, “I don’t have enough… I don’t even know where this plant is supposed to be.” I apologized to my wife and then told her that I had no plan B. The next morning, we sat before 3 assessors and listened as they affirmed our calling to plant and committed support for it. So overwhelmed with anxiety and gratitude, I broke down in tears. Then I was asked, “so, what’s next?” My response, “I don’t know…”

For the next few months, I found myself “stuck.” I was unemployed, didn’t know where to go, and had a family to support. I was anxious to say the least. In my anxiety, God revealed the heart of Convergence in a real way. I was at my twin daughters’ preschool one morning (one of the only dads) when I was confronted by one of the moms. She said to me, “it’s so great that you can be here every week with your daughters.” I immediately felt proud. Then she asked, “what do you do?” My uncomfortable response was, “well, I’m unemployed right now.” She then responded “oh” and then proceeded to go and talk with another mom. I felt anxious, ashamed and started to say to myself, “what am I doing here? I should be working on the new church plant. I should be working instead of wasting my time here.” In that moment, God broke through and asked me two questions, “where does that come from? Who’s telling you that?” Then He said to me, “why don’t you think that this, what you’re doing right here and right now is important? Because in my Kingdom, THIS is important!” In that moment, I saw how far I really was from God’s kingdom and embraced my calling and my mission… To live and bring more of God’s kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven… But I still didn’t know where to go.

All of the sudden, Oakland started to come up in conversation near me and far from me. People had heard that I was planting a church and automatically said, “Where? Oakland?” People were asking me directly about Oakland. So, I took a tour of the city with a good friend of mine. After two intense tours, I have to admit that I felt nervous, scared, ill-equipped, but certain that Oakland was where I was supposed to go.

Four months later, my family moved to Oakland and began the journey of planting Convergence…