Every church has a story, and every church has to decide what to do with it. Some churches try to preserve the past. Others pretend it never happened. Scripture gives a better way: “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith” (Hebrews 13:7).
Citylight Church began in 1952, when a pastor took a step of faith and started a church in Saraland, Alabama. Decades later, the church grew to the point that it had to move, and a congregation willing to do whatever it takes found a new home on 20 acres on Shelton Beach Road in Saraland. That same whatever-it-takes faith shapes where the church is going now.
The word for this season is simple: we’re building.
Building on a Foundation Others Laid
When the church’s building went up, the founding pastor’s Bible was sealed into the foundation. It lies open to one verse, with one phrase underlined: “on this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:18).
That is a good picture of the vision. The building is already here, but the church is not done building. A church is not the legacy of a few leaders. It is built by ordinary people who stay faithful through every season, and by the next generation who will carry it forward. An incredible life, and an incredible church, is built on the finished work of Jesus Christ.
Four Ways Everyone Can Build
Building is not a job for a pastor and a few staff members. Everyone has a part, and it comes down to four simple commitments:
- Pray. Everything good that happens in a church happens through prayer.
- Invite. Most people who come to church come because someone asked them.
- Serve. Ministry grows only as fast as people step in to carry it.
- Give. When you give, ministry happens. Generosity is how a church reaches people it has not yet met.
Building Care for Our Neighbors
Saraland and North Mobile are full of hurting people, many of them desperately hurting. Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:31), and that command needs more than good intentions. It needs a plan.
That is why Citylight is building structured ways to care for the community: practical help that treats families with dignity and respect, pastoral care that reaches people the senior pastor cannot always reach, and a place in every Sunday service where anyone who needs prayer can come forward and receive it.
Building on Every Generation
Even with a strong focus on the next generation, Citylight wants something in the house for every generation. The senior adults who have prayed, served and given for decades are not winding down. They are leaning in. Their ministry is now called Legacy Builders, because legacy is not only something that has been built. It is something that is being built. It is not a noun. It is a verb.
At the same time, children matter enormously to the future of any church. Citylight is investing in children’s ministry with qualified leadership, new teaching and better spaces, because a child’s eternal life can be shaped in a Sunday classroom.
Building Beyond Our Walls
A church that only builds for itself is too small. Citylight sows into the nations: training indigenous missionaries in Kenya to carry the gospel into unreached parts of Africa, and feeding children every day through Convoy of Hope.
The church is also working to translate its services and online messages into other languages, beginning with Spanish, so neighbors who do not speak English as their first language can hear the gospel in their own language. It is a modern echo of Pentecost, when the crowd said, “we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God” (Acts 2:11).
Building with Purpose
Not everything a church can do is something it should do right now. The apostle Paul once delayed a visit to Corinth for exactly this reason: “For I do not want to see you now just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits” (1 Corinthians 16:7).
Citylight’s approach is the same. Ministries launch when they can succeed, not just to fill a slot on the calendar. Whatever the church does, it wants to do with purpose and with excellence, and to see fruit come from it.
Faith That Functions in Lack
Every honest vision runs into the same question: how can we possibly do this? The resources never seem to match the dream. The story of David and Goliath speaks directly to that.
David was a shepherd boy, not a soldier. Under Philistine domination, Israel had almost no weapons: “on the day of the battle there was neither sword nor spear found in the hand of any of the people with Saul and Jonathan, but Saul and Jonathan his son had them” (1 Samuel 13:22). When Saul offered David his armor and sword, David turned them down. He walked out to face Goliath with a sling and his faith, and he declared, “This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand” (1 Samuel 17:46). And he told the whole army why: “the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s” (1 Samuel 17:47).
David had no sword for what he said he would do. He did not need one. He served a God who gives the victory into His people’s hands.
That is what faith looks like. Faith does not operate in abundance. It functions in lack as if it had abundance. Before something can be seen, it must be believed. The prophet Habakkuk was told to “Write the vision; make it plain on tablets” (Habakkuk 2:2), and to trust that “it will surely come; it will not delay” (Habakkuk 2:3).
Forward, Not Back
It is easy for a church to spend its energy trying to get back to the way things used to be. Citylight is grateful for its past, and anyone who wants to come home is welcome. But the goal is not to get people back. There are far more people in this region who do not yet know Jesus, and the prayer of this church is simple: Lord, give us the harvest.
If you are looking for a church that is honest about where it is, grateful for where it came from and full of faith about where God is taking it, there is a place for you to build alongside us at Citylight.