Community Covenant Church sits on Topaz Avenue in Rocklin, California, just across the street from Parker Whitney Elementary School. The building has been the congregation's home since 1966, but the church itself goes back well over a century - to a September day in 1871, when a small group of believers first organized what was then called the First Congregational Church of Christ in the Rocklin area. Today the church is known by a simpler name and by a distinctive phrase: an intergenerational church. Members range from a few months old to 104 years young, and the congregation has built its ministry, its worship services, and its small-group life around the conviction that every generation has something to give and something to receive.
A Congregation With a Long Memory
The story of Community Covenant Church is the story of four different names, four different eras, and one continuous community. After its 1871 founding as the First Congregational Church of Christ, the congregation changed its name to the Rocklin Pilgrim Church in the early 1940s, a reflection of the pastor's ties to the Pilgrim Holiness Church in Pasadena. In 1946 it became the Rocklin Community Church. Four years later, on March 26, 1950, the congregation under the leadership of the Rev. Worth Hodgins voted to enter fellowship with the Mission Covenant Church at both the state and national level. That vote established the church's ongoing connection to what is now the Evangelical Covenant Church, the Swedish-rooted, evangelical, Reformation heritage the congregation still identifies with today.
The move to the present 5140 Topaz Avenue site came on January 30, 1966, when the church was reorganized at its new location and renamed the Evangelical Covenant Church. The familiar shortened name, Community Covenant Church, came later. That history - part Congregational, part Pilgrim Holiness, part Mission Covenant, and finally Evangelical Covenant - is unusual, and the church does not hide it. Visitors who ask will hear a quick sketch of a community that has been gathered in the Rocklin area since the era of the transcontinental railroad.
Intergenerational by Design
If the long history is one marker, the church's self-described identity is another. The church describes itself as uniquely intergenerational: it is not content simply to be multigenerational, with separate rooms for separate ages. It wants to be intergenerational, with members of every age serving and learning alongside one another.
A quote from Zach Yentzer, a former lead pastor, frames the conviction: "Elder generations are not something to be moved on from, and younger generations are not something to be moved towards - the necessity for all to serve and minister together, and to be honored by the other as Christ loves all His church, is not just said and believed, but also practiced." To make that more than a slogan, the church runs age-specific programming while also creating intentional space - often during Sunday morning services - for generations to connect, grow, and serve together.
Three commitments hold the ministry together, in this order: Connecting, Growing, and Serving. Connecting is described as commitment to people and significant relationships with Jesus and one another, paired with John 15:4 ("Remain in me, as I also remain in you"). Growing is described as commitment to building faith in the midst of brokenness by being the church together, paired with 2 Thessalonians 1:3. Serving is described as commitment to surrendering to love and serve others because of the example of Jesus, paired with Philippians 2:3-5.
Sunday Mornings at Ten
The Sunday service starts at 10:00 a.m. People begin mingling around 9:30, and the Connecting Team stays available after the service for questions. The church describes the dress code in its own words: "God loves us in blue jeans and flip flops, as much as He loves the next guy in his suit and tie." Visitors can expect to see a mix - shorts, dresses, suits, and everything in between - with no pressure to dress up or dress down.
The service is structured to keep families together for as long as possible. The congregation worships through song together at the start. After that opening time of worship, kids are invited out to their own classes on the second and fourth Sundays. Family tables in the sanctuary and kids resources in the lobby make it easy for parents who prefer to keep children with them.
For those who cannot attend in person, the service is livestreamed on YouTube each Sunday at 10:00 a.m., and the recording stays available before being moved to the Sermons page. A nursery room is open every Sunday for parents who want a place to take young children, and a TV in the nursery lets parents follow along with the livestream.
Kids and Youth
The Kids Ministry operates on a simple rhythm. On the second Sunday of the month, there are classes for preK through 2nd grade and 3rd through 5th grade. On the fourth Sunday, all kids preK through 5th grade are invited to a combined gathering in the Youth Room with songs, Bible lessons, games, and activities. On the first and third Sundays, kids stay with their families for the entire service. Every child must be checked in before service and checked out by a parent or guardian.
The Youth Ministry welcomes students in 6th through 12th grade. Its stated purpose echoes the church's three commitments - to help students connect with one another and God, grow in their faith, and learn to serve. Middle school and high school students are encouraged to participate in the regular Sunday morning service as well. Pastor Jeff Kaetzel, Associate Pastor of Youth Ministry, is the contact for students and families wanting more information.
Missional Serving Communities
Missional Serving Communities, known around the church as MSCs, are the small-group engine of the congregation's serving life. Each MSC is a small group formed with an intentional focus on service, but the groups also build in time for connecting with one another and growing closer to God through scripture, study, and prayer.
MSCs follow a three-unit yearly rhythm. Unit 1 has focused on homelessness and includes partnerships with Loaves and Fishes and Compassion Planet. Unit 2 has focused on justice. Unit 3 has focused on creation care. Each unit runs roughly six weeks and moves through steps the church calls Pray, See, Learn (in two parts), Serve, and a Debrief and Celebration. The church describes the format as a "sampler platter" - the goal is for participants to identify which topic resonates most, then dive deeper in a second-year MSC 2.0 pathway.
The 2.0 pathway currently emphasizes refugees. Recommended reading includes A Better Country: Embracing the Refugees in Our Midst, and the church walks participants through an online course offered by World Relief Sacramento called Intro to Resettlement. Volunteers who complete the path can join a Good Neighbor Team, which provides ongoing support for a refugee family settling in the Sacramento area. A six-week video-based curriculum called Becoming Good Neighbors is available for individuals, couples, or small groups who want a flexible on-ramp to missional living. Chrissy Kaetzel, Director of Missional Serving Communities, coordinates all of this work.
For people who would rather serve without joining a small group, the MSCs run service projects throughout the year that anyone in the church is welcome to join. There is also a Community Engagement Team that meets to plan neighborhood prayer walks, creek clean-ups near Whitney High School, and other ways to show up in the city of Rocklin.
Across the Street: Parker Whitney Elementary
One of the most visible ministries of Community Covenant Church is also the most local. The church sits directly across the street from Parker Whitney Elementary School, and over the course of each school year the congregation serves the school's faculty, students, and parents in concrete ways. The list is practical: an Adopt a Teacher program, donated classroom resources, snacks and encouragement for the staff, hosting the school's choir for dress rehearsals, and a regular cookies-in-the-parking-lot outreach before and after school. The church also makes its parking lot available for school pickup and dropoff.
This neighborly relationship shapes much of the church's outward-facing life. The neighborhood prayer walks organized through the Community Engagement Team typically loop around the school and the surrounding blocks. Members who join MSCs often find a first service opportunity right across the street.
What the Church Believes
Community Covenant Church describes itself as a part of the Evangelical Covenant Church, and it inherits that denomination's Reformation, evangelical, and Pietist roots. When new members join a Covenant church, they are asked two questions about belief: whether they confess Jesus Christ as their Savior and promise to follow him as Lord, and whether they accept the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct. They are also asked whether they intend to live as faithful followers of Christ and members of the church and denomination. The Covenant Church does not require adherence to any written creed, but it takes theology and history seriously, and it describes its central beliefs as "affirmations" that are available for those who want to read them.
In the church's own framing, it is a Reformation church, a part of the church universal, and an evangelical church. Those two simple membership questions and the affirmations behind them are the doctrinal core. Everything else - the intergenerational services, the small groups, the MSC topics, the partnership with the school across the street - flows out of them.
Sermons, Giving, and Staying in Touch
Sermon series at Rocklin Cov tend to follow the Christian calendar and to walk through books of the Bible. Recent series have included studies of Habakkuk, Joel, Jonah, and Ruth; a long walk through Paul's letter to the Romans; Red Letter Summer; 1 and 2 Kings; Summer in the Psalms; and a multi-week study of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Each Fall the church returns to the Old Testament, and the current series, Mourning and Rejoicing, runs alongside readings from Habakkuk, Joel, Jonah, and Ruth. The preaching team includes Lead Pastor Mike Stelle, Associate Pastor Chris Gothold, Associate Pastor Jeff Kaetzel, Director of Missional Serving Communities Chrissy Kaetzel, and a rotating slate of guest speakers.
Recordings of every series are kept on the Sermon Archive page and on the church's YouTube channel. The archive reaches back several years and includes reading plans and study guides for most series.
Giving is framed as an act of obedience and generosity. Members and friends can give during the Sunday offering, by mail, in person, online through a secure Church Center portal, or by texting the word GIVE and the amount to a dedicated number. Online giving supports both one-time and recurring gifts.
For people who want to keep up with what is happening, the church publishes a Connecting, Growing, Serving newsletter and a weekly email. The link to sign up is on the website, and the church maintains an active Instagram presence at @RocklinCCC as well as a Facebook page under the same name. Pastor Mike Stelle and the rest of the pastoral staff can be reached at pastoralstaff@rocklincov.org, and the church phone number, (916) 624-1609, is available for anyone who would rather call.
From its 1871 beginnings to its current identity as an intergenerational Evangelical Covenant congregation on Topaz Avenue, Community Covenant Church has built its life around a simple conviction: that every generation has a place at the table, and that the table itself extends across the street to a school, into the surrounding neighborhood, and out to a city that the congregation has called home for more than 150 years.