Desiree’s Story

Planting a Gospel-Centered, Jesus-Centered, Multi-Ethnic, Multi-Socioeconomic and Multi-Generational Church in the SF Bay Area (North Oakland)

Approximately twenty years ago, my husband obeyed God's leading and we accepted a call to do cross-cultural ministry, reaching the Nations with the Gospel in America, at an Urbana conference in the early 2000s, and we've been doing that type of ministry as a married couple of African descent in America ever since. We have been married almost twenty years and we have three children. With the calling to reach the Nations in the U.S., we have lived in every major quadrant in the U.S. and after much praying and a series of providential events, including seminary and other training (and serving other Gospel-centered Churches in various contexts for over fifteen years), we were led to plant a Gospel-centered, Jesus-centered, multi-ethnic, multi-socioeconomic and multi-generational Church in North Oakland (in the Temescal area) in 2019, which is thriving by God's grace.  Ephesians 3 inspired us to pray for and pursue a Church that reflects many of the Nations that will be represented in Heaven, thus, we continued (and continue to) reaching out to people of many ethnic and other backgrounds with love, sharing the Gospel. By God's grace, we currently have approximately fifteen ethnic groups represented in our Church plant, Realm Church in Oakland (website: https://therealmchurch.com/). Another reason for planting a Church in the SF Bay area (in addition to wanting to reach as many Nations as possible with the Gospel in the U.S.) is that this area is arguably one of the top three unreached, unchurched areas in the U.S. with less than 3-4% out of nearly eight million people proclaiming faith in Christ. We have seen the LORD move mightily and we have baptized people from El Salvador, South Korea and from other ethnic groups. The spiritual warfare in this area of the U.S. is pretty heavy, however, people praying for us and financially supporting the Church plant continually spurs us on "to love and good deeds." We regularly serve our communities in various ways while also sharing the Gospel and continuing to stand firm lovingly and gently yet boldly on Biblical principles and Truths despite the immense pressure to bow down to the idols of this area with the help of the Holy Spirit and His people around the world praying for and standing with us. It's not easy but it's totally worth it - Jesus is worth it all and we definitely experience His power of being called to the Ones - in our neighborhoods, jobs, etc. ***For those who'd like to pray for us, please pray for wisdom and please pray John 15 over our family "The Westbrooks" and the church plant, "The Realm Church". We can be reached by emailing: Mcross@therealmchurch.com and pictures of our church plant can be viewed on Instagram at: "https://www.instagram.com/therealmchurch/" - We also welcome visitors too - we meet Sundays at 10 AM PST and our location and other details can be found on our website. We have truly experienced that obedience to Christ is better than sacrifice and we believe that God will reward all who belong to Him and choose the narrow road. Nothing compares to the heavenly glory that His chosen ones will receive, so keep pressing on! God is with us and He is in control! God is faithful. God bless you all!"