Great Pastors

Three generations of pastors all attending the same church.

Pastor Dave and Fran planted City Life Church in 1961, the year I (Rick Bergen) was born.

Pastor Dave and Fran retired about 20 years ago and passed the leadership of City Life Church over to Pastor Lorne and Linda. Pastor Lorne and Linda passed the baton on to Pastor Justin and Heidi. The two retired pastoral couples still attend City Life Church. Do you know of any other church like this? It’s very cool.  

In 1986 Pastor Dave got invited to be the guest speaker at a camp meeting 2,000 miles North, in a small Yukon town called Haines Junction. He invited his usher Harold Hansen to come along.

I was plowing snow for the winter in a mountain camp by the Alaska border. I drove 65 miles over icy roads to attend the Easter Camp Meeting. I usually slept in the front of my 1/2 ton pickup truck when I travelled in those years, and this camp meeting was several days long. At one of these meetings Harold told me about Christ For the Nations Bible School in Texas.

Later that same year, 1986, I quit my road maintenance job with the government to study in Texas for two years.

In 1991 I married Harold and Joan’s daughter, Deanna.

In 1993 Pastor Dave and the team at City Life Church sent Deanna and I to be full-time missionaries in Brazil. Luke Huber, who invited us to Brazil, died in a tragic accident nine months after we arrived. This led to us starting the Vineyard in Brazil and the Xingu Mission.

“It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to” (J.R.R. Tolkien).

Pastor’s Lorne and Pastor Justin (and many, many other pastors) have led teams to come and encourage us in the Amazon, and through the transitions and decades they remain a supportive and committed church family.

I am always grateful that Pastor Dave and Harold Hansen followed God’s leading to that camp meeting way up in the Yukon, back in 1986. We get where we are because other people obeyed God even when they have no idea about the outcomes of their obedience.

God is so awesome!