Church of her dreams
Jo Ann Kirby
Jill Garcia Vincent was looking for a church that fed her soul.
She prayed for a place that felt more spiritual.
She had even dreamed about a worship service where the music moved her to dance.
These Sunday mornings, she can be found raising the roof at Harvest Church Ministries in Stockton where worship begins abruptly to the booming sounds of a band and praise team leading a rousing song.
"I've always had a strong faith," Vincent, a 45-year-old Stockton elementary teacher, said on a recent Sunday. "I was raised in a Catholic family that has always been very faithful to Christ."
When the Brookside mom's two daughters were younger, she switched to a big Baptist church with multiple youth programs that suited her children.
But her faith quest continued.
And now, mother of two teenagers has ventured even further from her traditional Catholic origins to land at a charismatic church with beliefs similar to Pentecostals.
Vincent flashes a huge smile as she welcomes a steady stream of predominately African-American worshippers into Harvest Church Ministries on a recent Sunday.
There are big hugs, firm handshakes and warm greetings.
The congregation meets for an 11 a.m. Sunday worship at Peyton Elementary, a sparkling Stockton Unified campus on Gold Brook Drive off Holman Road.
Rows and rows of chairs are set up in the school's multipurpose room and a band is setting up on the stage.
Vincent is serving as an usher on this particular day as she tries to explain how she found a place that feels like home.
"I had started praying for a church like this," she said. "I prayed for a church like this for a year."
A friend invited her to check out Harvest three years ago.
"When I walked in, it was the exact church I had seen in my dreams," she said. "It was just meant to be."
The Rev. Frank Gonsalves and his wife, co-pastor Ivie, describe their ministry as a nondenominational church that welcomes people of all colors. They believe in spiritual gifts such as speaking in tongues.
The entire Gonsalves family is involved in the ministry, including the couple's five grown children. They are a close-knit clan with a knack for making their flock feel like part of a bigger family.
The 12-year-old church has a philosophy of training leaders through worship, teaching and fellowship.
"We want people to be leaders," Frank Gonsalves said he as described how parishioners are encouraged to meet with each other in small group settings. "We don't have a traditional Wednesday night service. We encourage people to become leaders and form small groups where they meet in each other's homes for Bible study."
Vincent, a sixth-grade teacher at Marshall Elementary school who sells Cookie Lee jewelry in her spare time, leads one herself - a women's group that meets on Thursdays.
But it is on Sundays when Vincent gets her biggest faith fix.
The service begins with a sudden and loud "Praise God" led by a worship team that has everyone on their feet.
If it's possible to sing loud enough for God to hear - or at least the neighbors - the folks at Harvest make every effort.
There is no escaping the sheer volume. Or the sheer joy.
It's music that at times has the congregation dancing while lifting their hands and voices in praise.
"Here I am to worship. Here I am to bow down. Here I am to say that you're my God," the congregation sings as the words flash on two screens. "You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me."
It's a celebration service that erupts into the type of cheers typically heard after a homerun hit when a worship leader beckons the flock to welcome newcomers.
The mood shifts slightly when Gonsalves is welcomed to deliver a sermon about the importance of living life with a cause.
"Go ye into all the world and proclaim the gospel," he said, urging his listeners to take up the cause of spreading the message of God's love to friends, family and neighbors. "I ask you: Do you have a cause? Is it something that's on your mind when you wake up in the morning?"
Her ushering duties over, Vincent rejoins her boyfriend, his kids and her daughters to talk about their post-church plans.
She said she's grateful for the faith foundation her parents instilled in her, the inspiration she's found in churches throughout her journey, and the relationship with God that she says grows deeper and deeper.
"I'm home," she said.
And echoing the invitation a friend gave her three years ago, she extends one of her own.
"You should come worship with us sometime."
Contact reporter Jo Ann Kirby at (209) 546-8256 or jkirby@recordnet.com. Visit her blog at recordnet.com/lensblog.
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