OUR STORY

It All Began In The 1990's

People of faith in Fresno, like people of faith in so many urban areas, were grappling with what they might be called to do and to be as poverty, addiction, unemployment, crime, and gang violence plagued far too many neighborhoods in our city. Collaborative efforts were sprouting up between faith, business and civic leaders. Urban Ministry projects were emerging.

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship staff in Fresno experimented with getting college students out of their well-controlled campus environment into the real world of urban America as a form of discipleship training. They wanted them to learn about God’s love for the city, meet Christian leaders who were making a difference in our toughest neighborhoods, and craft a discipleship that would make a difference in an increasingly urban world.

First Presbyterian Church responded to the influx of Southeast Asian immigrants by hiring a director of Southeast Asian Ministries, Joanie Ogg, who lived in the Lowell Neighborhood. In addition to cooking classes for women, bible clubs and art classes for children, she engaged the congregation in ESL and citizenship classes.The church hired a Lao church planter. Joanie married Marty Martin and they bought a home in the Lowell community which became a ministry hub.

Meanwhile, InterVarsity's Fresno Institute for Urban Leadership began in 1991 with a short service project (FUMP: Fresno Urban Ministry Project). It combined the chance to live, serve & sweat together with the chance to study the Scriptures. They partnered with World Impact, an inner-city mission, and church planting organization. The next year, an alumnus of this urban project decided that they wanted to serve year-round in the Lowell Neighborhood, Fresno’s highest crime, highest poverty community, so they started a tutoring program: The Wise Old Owl Tutoring Program. The Fresno Urban Internship program (FUI) was launched in 1993, placing college students with agencies such as Habitat for Humanity, World Impact, Evangel Home, and others where they could get exposure to God’s work in the city. These summer internships also contained a demanding curriculum.

That same year, Randy White (FIFUL’s founder) and his family moved into the Lowell Neighborhood and they invited students to live and learn with them. They called it the White House. Randy and Tina also made nearby FPC their church home.

By 1995 FPC's foundation had purchased the rest of the block on which their parking lot was located. The fire department burned one old building down as a training exercise. A former gas station structure was removed. As the church pondered what to do with the remaining historic 4-plex apartment building, Randy White pitched an idea that reversed the leadership's decision to remove the building. The White House program for incarnational urban ministry moved into the 1548 L Street 4-plex in 1996 and The Pink House was born. Hundreds of young adults passed through Fresno's first ministry house focused on urban ministry, leadership development and biblical community. It has been an important on-ramp for leaders seeking the Shalom, the well-being of our community as well as other communities in other corners of the world.

In 2010 a sister program, The Hub, was birthed in partnership with Highway City Community Development Corporation. A movement was sparked. Even though The Hub was discontinued, InterVarsity invested in a new generation of Ministry House directors. The Micah Project, a ministry of North Fresno Mennonite Brethren Church launched in 2013. The Bridge Church quickly followed, launching Casa Shalom in 2014. It ran for three years. By the fall of 2017, the Fresno Association of Ministry Houses was a collaboration between North Fresno and InterVarsity. In a unique inter-denominational partnership, these ministry houses located in different parts of Fresno, unified for their common purpose, with common work, values, and ministry model for the purpose of raising up leaders for the city and the cities of our world. They gathered weekly for training, prayer, community, and learning on Tuesday nights, and celebrated what God did in and through their collaboration.

In 2020, First Presbyterian Church assumed leadership of the Pink House as InterVarsity stepped back, joining the FAMH and continuing that collaboration with North Fresno. In the midst of the COVID pandemic, they discovered young adults were still eager to be disciplined and have their lives forged in the image of Jesus, to be equipped and empowered to seek the Shalom of their communities and to "act justly, love mercy and walk humbly" with God.

Fresno's first Ministry House is currently it’s only. The Pink House remains committed to inviting young adults into a rich, experiential, discipleship program that challenges, empowers, and equips them to live as followers of Jesus who seek the welfare, the Shalom, of their city, knowing that in striving for it's the transformation they, too, are transformed.

"To God be the glory. To the earth be peace. To the church be courage. To Fresno be hope."

-Ray Bakke (1938-2022)