Two congregations.
One new hope.

Ashbrook Church is started in Fresno.

Rev. Lonnie Rolen plants Ashbrook Church on Millbrook Avenue in Fresno, affiliated with the National Association of Free Will Baptists. The congregation buys property at 4141 N. Millbrook and builds an educational building, then a sanctuary. Founded to address the needs of young families with children, the church grows steadily through the late sixties and seventies.

God uses Lonnie Rolen to lead Ashbrook for the next twenty-five years. To those who knew him, he is "Pops."

New Hope Community Church is started in Clovis.

Pastor Bob Radtke, formerly Senior Pastor of Bethany Mennonite Brethren Church in Fresno, feels a call to start a non-denominational work in the Fresno-Clovis area. The vision is simple. Offer hope to families walking through tragedy and turmoil, and let the truth of the Bible do the heavy lifting.

A small congregation gathers, purchases the property at 4620 East Nees Avenue, and a new church takes its first breath. The name carries the vision. New Hope.

The sanctuary on Nees Avenue goes up, and the build is filmed start to finish.

The sanctuary is dedicated.

One year after the founding, the New Hope sanctuary is formally dedicated on the evening of October 28, 1980. A full service of dedication, with congregational singing, Scripture, and the consecration of the building to God's use. The full service was recorded, and it's preserved here in full.

Pastor Bob Radtke resigns. Rick Wood becomes Senior Pastor.

Pastor Radtke steps down. Rick Wood is called as the second Senior Pastor of New Hope. The young congregation, only four years old, has its second shepherd. Sundays continue at 4620 E. Nees.

Lonnie Rolen retires. His son Tim is called to lead Ashbrook.

After twenty-five years at Ashbrook, Lonnie Rolen retires. The congregation calls his son, Tim McLain Rolen, as its second Senior Pastor in twenty-five years. The Free Will Baptist congregation at 4141 N. Millbrook in Fresno is now led by the son of the man who planted it.

Two men, one conversation at a school function.

At a local school event, a man from each congregation strikes up a conversation. New Hope has recently lost its pastor. Ashbrook is looking for a new location, having outgrown the Millbrook site. The two men go home and tell their elders. The elders talk. Then the pastors talk.

Both congregations vote to merge. Simultaneously.

On Saturday, October 17, 1992, around 12:30 in the afternoon, both congregations hold separate merger votes at the same hour. Each requires a 75% majority. Both clear the threshold. Two churches, in two cities, have decided in the same moment to become one.

The first Sunday as one church.

The next morning, October 18, 1992, the Ashbrook congregation drives the eight miles east to Clovis and joins New Hope at 4620 East Nees. The Nees sanctuary is packed. Tim McLain Rolen, who had been senior pastor of Ashbrook, becomes senior pastor of the merged church. New Hope Community Church, as it exists today, is born.

For thirty years, God uses Tim Rolen to shape the church.

From the first Sunday after the merger through October 2022, Tim McLain Rolen serves as Senior Pastor of New Hope. Three decades of teaching. A small staff that becomes a full one. A children's ministry that grows up and sends out its own families. A missions program that takes Matt and Shelley Actis to Colombia and then Uganda. A care ministry that runs Celebrate Recovery and GriefShare and quiet meal trains nobody hears about.

Through Tim, God shapes a fabric of hospitality. The word community in New Hope Community Church starts to mean what it says.

Pastor Tim Rolen preaching at New Hope

Mark Addis joins the pastoral team.

Mark Addis comes on staff as Associate Pastor, working alongside Tim Rolen and the rest of the pastoral team. The teaching rotation expands.

The Barn is completed.

A major expansion of the Nees Avenue campus. The Barn building adds a full fellowship hall (big enough to seat the whole church for a dinner), the Steele Conference Room, classrooms for kids and students, and the space the church will need to do the next thirty years of ministry.

Thirty years since the merger. The whole church gathers.

Two events on the same day. A special Sunday morning service in the sanctuary, then a dinner in The Barn that evening. Over three hundred past and current members come. Some have not set foot on campus in years; many drove in from out of state. Six of them sit down for "Make a Difference" video interviews, the testimony series that became Stories.

30-year anniversary dinner in The Barn, October 2022

The Sunday morning anniversary service, October 2022

Pastor Mark Addis is installed as Senior Pastor.

At the close of a two-year transitional process, Mark Addis is installed as Senior Pastor on December 26, 2022. Tim Rolen moves into phased retirement and a part-time role on staff. The teaching continues. The fabric of hospitality continues. The mission continues.

Pastor Mark Addis, Senior Pastor since December 2022