Village Baptist Church (Update 1)

3585 Cypress Drive, Petaluma

Back around August of 2015, Village Baptist Church moved from their previous location at Suzanne's Dance School, at 532 S. McDowell in Petaluma, to an office suite at 3835 Cypress Drive, Suite 107, also in Petaluma (almost directly across from the UPS headquarters for Petaluma).  As with an increasing number of churches, they moved into an office building usually used for businesses.  It's in an industrial park in the south side of Petaluma.

Oddly, this move garnered unusual opposition expressed to the City of Petaluma.  I say unusual, since, when I visited, there is no one visible for quite a distance all around.  Some expressed concern they would have large meetings during the workweek, and overwhelm the parking lot, though the church asserted they held no work-hour meetings during the work week.  Eventually, the Planning Commission determined they needed no conditional permit, since the law treated them as a club which needs no conditional permit, and the City Council upheld an appeal of the Planning Commission decision in a unanimous vote.

3585 Cypress Drive
 Backside Main Entrance

I previously posted that Village Baptist Church had their main congregation down in Marin City, in Marin County, and Pastor Akognan would do an early service in Petaluma (since he lives here), and then travel down to Marin City to do a later service.  But since then, around three years ago or so, Village Baptist shut down their Marin City church, and moved all their operations up here in Petaluma.

So in my last post, I reported an attendance of around 20-30, while today, I saw around 60 or so (without counting those caring for children's Sunday school - so I would guess around 70 or so in weekly attendance.)  Some down in Marin City followed the move up to Petaluma.  Others still live in Marin City, but hope to move up here.  The church also hopes to grow up here.  They also hope to improve the lighting in their sanctuary.

It felt good to visit a church where most of the congregation consists of a portion of our society under-represented in Petaluma, but that has contributed so much to our culture.

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