Mar
03
2010
TGC Bay Area Member Spotlight: Justin Buzzard
It can be weird to meet the people whose books you read.
Not being a pastor, and not making the young, reformed conference circuit, I had never met Justin Taylor, Tim Challies, Eric Redmond, Denny Burk, Russell Moore, and many of the other names whose great books and blogs I’d read before. And prior to November 2009 -- when I met with many of these guys in Chicago to work on a Gospel Coalition/Crossway book project -- I was familiar with The Gospel Coalition in name only. I knew the organization existed, I knew it had a website, and I knew it served pastors and churches, but I really didn’t know how or where.
That meeting was revealing on a number of levels. I felt like I was the only layperson in the room, as I discovered the depth of knowledge and passion for scripture around the table. I was inspired to learn more[1]. And I was, I discovered, the only young, reformed author in the room without an iPhone™[2]. But I also learned that The Gospel Coalition has a vision to reach out to lay audiences as well as pastors (with our book and other resources), and create unity among churches across the country.
I talked with The Gospel Coalition honcho Ben Peays about a series of articles, and set out to see what this organization actually does. And then I did what any good sports journalist[3] would do -- I found a former football player to interview.
Justin Buzzard is a pastor at Central Peninsula Church, which is home to over 2,000 members. He leads a thriving ministry to San Francisco Bay Area twentysomethings, preaches regularly on Sunday mornings, and oversees a variety of adult ministries. He played a season of college football in Washington before graduating from Westmont College in 2000, and received his M.Div. and served as a youth pastor before accepting the call to CPC.
The San Francisco Bay Area has 7.5 million people, and according to Buzzard, only five percent of those would call themselves “churched.”
“It’s a ridiculously expensive place to live, and people here work really hard,” Buzzard says of the Bay Area population, many of whom move from other places to work for culture-shaping companies like Google, Oracle, You Tube and Electronic Arts. “It’s a strategic place to do ministry,” Buzzard says. “Our people can be in their workplaces making an impact for Christ."
Buzzard has 150 people in his Thursday night group, where he preaches before dividing up into fourteen different community groups that meet across the Bay Area.
“People don’t know anybody when they move here, and our twenty-somethings ministry has grown some great friendships,” he says. “That group has injected a lot of life into our church as they’ve grown and served together."
It’s also a challenging place to do ministry -- a place where the gospel message is often maligned -- and a hotbed for social issues. “The push for gay rights is huge here,” he says. “And every day there’s a demonstration or riot of some kind or another at Berkeley, or a group of politicians flying into San Francisco to debate an issue. It’s a happening place, in every sense of the word.”
All the more important, then, for Buzzard and other like minded pastors to find each other.
“The Gospel Coalition connection really gives pastors and other leaders the chance to unite behind the gospel,” he says. “The Gospel Coalition was largely influenced by some pretty heady dudes[4], but I’ve really seen it bring together lots of guys from different backgrounds. It’s helped us to find where Christians are in the Bay Area -- Christians who believe in the Biblical gospel. It’s a place where young guys like me can say ‘here’s a place where I belong.’”
Buzzard has received encouragement not only from the sermons, articles and reviews on The Gospel Coalition website, but also the relationships that come from The Gospel Coalition Bay Area Chapter. It’s a model that the organization would like to see replicated across the country.
“Sometimes I feel like the ministry challenges are insurmountable,” he says of the unique cultural climate of the Bay Area. “But the positive in that is that I can’t trust in myself at all, as a pastor. It’s only going to be by a miracle of God’s grace that ministry happens here.”
For more on Justin Buzzard, visit buzzardblog.com. And for more information on The Gospel Coalition Bay Area and their regional conference this month, visit TGC Bay Area.
[1] I also felt a little stupid/bored at times, but not because anybody made me feel that way.
[2] If this sentence causes legions of young, reformed blog readers to go out and purchase their own iPhones, let it be known, Apple, that I would like a piece of the action.
[3] I write about sports when I’m not writing about the church.
[4] This is something that people from California say. Buzzard is from California.