A new church has emerged in Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay Area and it is targeting tech workers at Facebook, Google and other companies.
C3 Silicon Valley is led by Adam Smallcombe, a 35-year-old pastor, who came to San Francisco with his wife, Keira, from Sydney, Australia in 2012 to plant a church in the Bay Area, Buzzfeed News reported.
The two left their jobs as youth ministers to establish the church in California.
While it is not affiliated with Hillsong Church, C3SV's goal is to spread the gospel by attracting the millenial workers at Silicon Valley.
The Smallcombes are spreading the existence of the church just like selling software to tech employees and engineers.
Its website features a donation page that urges people to "invest in eternity."
For church services, C3SV rented a Jewish Community Center in Palo Alto, which is about six minutes drive from Google's headquarters and 12 minutes from Facebook.
"We didn't start this church just to create another church," said Smallcombe. "We wanted to create a church that really appeals to the engineers of Silicon Valley."
Silicon Valley is hungry for spiritual guidance. Research showed that only 5 percent of Silicon Valley residents attend church on Sundays.
"Prevailing sentiment is that tech workers consider themselves too smart, too rational, and too comfortable to need God," Buzzfeed wrote.
C3SV brands itself as nondenominational and in a video, it declares, "Not Religious? Neither Are We."
Smallcombe's recent main sermon was part of a series called "Going Public."
"We're not talking about an initial public offering. We're talking about being bold with the message of love, being bold with the message of grace, and really trying to change people's perspective with how they see the church," he said.
The Smallcombes said moving to California was not in their plan.
"We weren't thinking California — we were thinking Sydney, Australia. We've got beautiful beaches, amazing coffee. We thought, 'Hey, we'll suffer for Jesus in the northern beaches of Sydney,'" Adam said.
One day at Starbucks at Stanford, Smallcombe told a guy in front of them in the line that he thinking of putting up a church in Silicon Valley.
Smallcombe's grandfather was also a church planter in Australia. When I asked about the family business, Smallcombe said, "I guess you could say it's in the family to do ministry," as though the connection had just occurred to him.
"He looked at me really funny, as you can imagine, and he began to tell me the reasons why we shouldn't start a church in the Bay Area. People have too much money, nobody needs God, everyone's way too intellectual for that kind of thing — everything negative he was saying, maybe it's just my nature, was confirmation for us. It was like waving a red flag to a bull. We're like, 'This is it, we're going to do this,'" he said.
Since 2012, C3SV has attracted more than 3,000 visitors. It has 1,500 active members.
Smallcombe said he wanted to have a church where members "weren't ashamed or afraid to invite people."
He denies that the church is acting as a missionary to Silicon Valley.
"We definitely were aware ... that the influence out of this region is unlike any other region in the world. Our church is definitely not being funded by wealthy people. It's by people who are just normal, average people, but they're generous, even though [they are] paying [exorbitant] rent. They have seen what God has done in their life and for them I think it's just a way to honor God and glorify God and give back," he said.
