Stepping Stones to Planting a Church

Jay Stovall (‘10, ‘12) was recruited to play basketball for California Baptist University, but two weeks prior to the start of the season, he injured himself and was put on a medical redshirt. That same summer, his best friend passed away.

“I had all of these questions for God,” Stovall said. “Through wrestling with God and lots of hardship, I was finally met with a moment where God was saying, ‘Either you’re going to follow me and have faith, or you’re just going to keep going down a path ending in lack of identity, frustration and depression.’ I really took a step of faith.”

Stovall opted to terminate his basketball scholarship, stopped playing basketball and shifted his focus to his education.

But basketball still opened a door. Stovall traveled to Malaysia on an International Service Project. While there, he played pick-up basketball games with the locals. Stovall connected with a Muslim man and shared his love for God.

By the last game, the man turned to Stovall and said, “I want this Jesus that you have.”

“This guy had never heard of Jesus and now he wanted a relationship with Him,” Stovall said. “That moment shifted everything for me. I know that my purpose was to share the good news of the gospel with others for the rest of my life.”

After graduation, Stovall served as a graduate advisor and residence director, helping students make CBU their new home. He later worked in Community Life as director of cultural and commuter programs and then director of new

In 2019, Stovall went to work for The GO Fund, a nonprofit that pays off student debt for missionaries. During this time, his pastor at VantagePoint Church invited him out to coffee and asked him if he’s ever considered planting a church. Stovall’s immediate response: “Absolutely not.”

“I had this internal belief that I wasn’t qualified so I wasn’t open to what God could have been up to,” Stovall said.

Shortly after, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. His former students and interns reached out for guidance and a

Stovall took a step back and envisioned what a church would look like for him, his wife and four children and the local community.

“God was preparing me for pastoring, just not in the context that I thought,” Stovall said. “The CBU students were asking me, ‘How do we follow Jesus in a time like this?’ And it became very clear — God, whatever you want me to do, throw me out on the front lines.”

For the next year, Stovall said God prepared him to lead with compassion, grace, mercy and a dependency on Him. Stovall and his wife built a team of 13 adults and 13 kids. They met in his home for the first five months talking about God’s vision for the church in the cultural context and climate they were in.

“We spent time understanding what the gospel means and how it impacts every facet of our lives,” Stovall said. “We talked through what discipleship means so we all were seeking clearly to articulate the type of culture we wanted to create as a church.”

Portrait Church officially opened Sept. 10, 2023. The church meets in The Mitten Building in downtown Redlands, California. There’s a variety of churches and religious buildings nearby, but Stovall desired to plant a church that would dig deeper. Many people want and desire a place that is diverse, but oftentimes that diversity ends up being more superficial, Stovall said.

Portrait seeks to connect with the community, and with those who are neglected, to understand more of what they need, what is missing and what they are struggling with in the community.

“The Redlands community is becoming more multicultural and more multiethnic,” Stovall said. “The Kingdom of God doesn’t pass over ethnicity or social class. How can we all come together? It’s because of the power of the gospel.”

The name, Portrait Church, comes from Ephesians 2 and how Jesus is the foundation and image of the church, Stovall said.

“Every single person that comes in our church, their portraits, their faces are all made in God’s image,” Stovall said. “God’s greatest commandments were to love God and love people, and we want to put that at the forefront of everything we do. We want people to leave more impressed with Jesus than us.”

To learn more about Stovall’s story and Portrait Church, visit: www.portrait.church