Prayer Bringing Church Unity in Central California

Healings, family reconciliations, and other evidence of the Holy Spirit’s work occurred at this year’s 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting in Fresno and suburban Clovis. But three AG pastors with prominent roles in these annual observances say the most outstanding testimony is the church unity they have forged in central California.

Jim Franklin, senior pastor of Cornerstone Church, says seeing a cross-denominational, multiracial, multicultural group gather for 21 consecutive prayer meetings in January thrilled him.

“That’s one of the biggest miracles I saw taking place and that we’ve seen over recent years,” says Franklin, 67. “Barriers are falling. People often say churches can’t work together, but that’s not true in Fresno.”

Elias G. Loera, 55, a local pastor and the key leader of city-wide pastoral groups that preceded the launch of 21 Days in 2015, says the services averaged attendance of 500 on weeknights and 800-plus on the weekends. There were 1,450 at the final service at Cornerstone, with another 600 watching the livestream. A record 135 churches participated this year.

Among the most stirring testimonies Loera heard was a healing that took place in one of the small prayer circles that gathered briefly during services. A man whose knee hurt so bad he could barely walk asked two strangers to pray for him. The next morning he felt fine; after going to see his doctor, the physician canceled the man’s knee replacement surgery.

“When [other denominations] hear about these kinds of healings, it’s a big deal,” says Loera, who in mid-March celebrated 25 years at Family Christian Assembly.

“They’re not used to witnessing things like that. The churches in the community are blessed by the experiences of Pentecostals and charismatics.”

One of Bob J. Willis’s favorite testimonies took place a decade ago. A single, middle-aged man experiencing some personal struggles participated in 21 Days at the urging of a friend.

Six months later, the bachelor met the woman who is now his wife. The couple, whom Willis married, now have two children.

Willis, senior pastor of Northpark Community Church, says the pastoral unity in Fresno—which has attracted national media attention in the past—goes back three decades. That’s when G.L. Johnson (1928-2011) longtime pastor of Peoples Church, organized a pastoral retreat in the mountains.

Those retreats continue to this day, with an autumn gathering at a Christian campground and an in-town event every spring. The most recent held in March at Campus Bible Church.

Pastoral unity developed further with 1999’s advent of “pastor clusters,” inter-denominational groups of 15 to 30 pastors. Grouped by geographic locations, most meet monthly for prayer; some also enjoy a meal together.

The first two were started by pastors who have since retired. These clusters got a jumpstart after Loera helped organize a downtown cluster in 2003 and spread out from there.

An Army veteran who worked with special operations units for five years in the military, the pastor used his training and knowledge to good advantage. Meeting regularly with other pastors to organize similar groups and serving as a “point man,” Loera helped increase the number of groups to 14.

“I learned from hanging out with special ops guys that leaders are force multipliers,” says Loera, also assistant superintendent of the Central Pacific Ministry Network. “Our commanders told us to always try to get other people involved because we couldn’t do it all ourselves. I applied that to the church.”

The 21 Day observances started informally in 2014, when Loera proposed pastors in his cluster host individual prayer services before gathering together on the final night.

The following year Loera was mediating a conflict between some parachurch organizations and pastors. He suggested they resolve the tension by asking 21 churches to each host a community-wide prayer service.

“I was trying to play peacemaker,” Loera recalls. “We had 14 pastors and two at-large leaders, so there were 16 at the table. Everyone said, ‘It’s not going to work; you won’t be able to find 21 churches.’ I said, ‘I have 16 here; I only need five more.’”

Loera intentionally recruited additional pastors to increase diversity within the group. They included additional Hispanic and African-American pastors, as well as leaders of smaller congregations. That stance is paying dividends: a predominantly white congregation recently agreed to allow two pastors from small, Black churches to host prayer at the larger church’s building in January of 2026.

Franklin says the 21 Days have stimulated other activity, like the Fresno-Clovis Prayer Breakfast. This year 2,700 (second only to the 3,500 who attended Washington, D.C.’s event) came to the mid-February event. It featured The Chosen series producer Dallas Jenkins as keynote speaker.

Various churches will be hosting services for the National Day of Prayer May 1, when a prayer walk will wind through downtown Fresno. While they can’t trace any particular outcome to these gatherings, Loera says his region no longer carries the reputation of being “the armpit of California.”

“When we started this, we never thought it would happen this way,” Willis adds. “I’ve never seen another city where pastors cooperate and get along so well together. It’s been phenomenal.”