“I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord…” Jeremiah 29:11
The journey to this season follows God’s fingerprints upon our lives. Looking back it’s so clear how God has used every season to prep us for this season of church planting.
In the summer of 2004, Loren met Jesus at the age of 15 and found freedom and joy he never experienced before. He wanted everyone at his school to find the same freedom he had found and got plugged in to a faith-filled community.
Meanwhile, Veronica grew up loving Jesus, ministering with her family in various ways at church, and felt called to ministry at a kids camp at the age of 16 while she was investing into kids.
*Fun Fact: The kids camp Veronica attended that summer of ‘04 is in the same county of California (Lassen) where Loren felt a tug from God to ride his bike to church. God was moving!
2 0 0 8 // After graduating high school (2007), everyone asked Loren, “What are you gonna do?” He wanted to keep doing what he had been doing; getting as many people as he could to know the freedom that is only found in Jesus. In early 2008, a door opened for him to do ministry in Sacramento and he went for it, moving over 200 miles away from family to a new city where he knew only one person. He became the youth pastor of Trinity Life Center at the ripe age of 19. He had no idea what he was doing, but God was shaping him in that season.
He soon met Veronica at the same church where she grew up and love blossomed during ministry partnership of Sunday school, outreaches, a missions trip to Mexico, Youth Convention and lots of In-n-Out Burger with friends. After an eight month friendship, they started dating in October of 2008. They each began to see God move more and more through their relationship but also in the way they teamed up in ministry.
2 0 1 0 // It was apparent that God had brought these two together, and Loren and Veronica were married in October 2010, surrounded by hundreds of friends and family. They continued to minister to the students as youth pastors and saw God restore and release His presence upon teenagers on a weekly basis and through powerful events like Summer Camp.
2 0 1 5 // They began to feel God transitioning them into a new ministry season and chose to join their friends, Caleb and Chrissy Cole, at Project Church to start a second campus in the city of West Sacramento, CA. As they now had a two year old daughter, they were called to reach young families with life and freedom in Jesus.
September 2015, they set up for the first of many Sunday services in an elementary school gymnasium. It was a thrilling season as God brought many families to a life-changing relationship with Jesus. Loren and Veronica had seen the faithfulness of God and grew in their giftings and leadership.
2 0 2 2 // After acquiring a permanent location in-between Project Church’s Downtown and West Sacramento locations (2019), the campuses came together to further God’s call to reach the Sacramento area. The covid shutdowns of 2020 initiated a simplified transition into this miracle building, and the Zamora’s roles switched to associate pastors supporting the team in any way they could.
After welcoming their fourth child (a son after three daughters), Loren and Veronica began to feel the tug to plant their own life-giving church. With affirmation from their lead pastors, it was just a matter of when and where.
They visited Tampa, Florida in January of 2022 to help coach new church planters with the Church Multiplication Network (CMN) and God confirmed that He was calling them to move across the country to plant Neighbors Church in the Tampa Bay Area! The rest, as they say, is history. The Zamora family moved in June to their home in Clearwater and began dreaming about what God wanted to do in this area.
2 0 2 3 // With all the dreams of what God could do in Tampa Bay, God highlighted St. Petersburg as the city He wanted to bring the vision of Neighbors Church to life.
In this season, Loren and Veronica focused on local relationships with pastors, building team with various gatherings in a donut shop, art studio, and local church fellowship hall. God also refined the “HOW?” of this vision by confirming a new way of doing church through small connected communities, called “microchurches.”
In December, we launched our first micro-church in the Azalea neighborhood of St. Petersburg, with the vision of multiplying across Pinellas county.