Abundant Life Christian Fellowship

My husband and I have worshipped at Abundant Life since 1995, through many seasons and more than a few pastors. Yet we are now marveling at the beautiful church the Lord has birthed here in the past year. The current spiritual life at Abundant Life is strong and godly, and the sermons are Christ-​centered, tremendously nourishing spiritual feast. We are rejoicing and thanking the Lord daily to be worshipping here. All personality cults and stagey distractions have been swept away.
The worship of prayer and singing, now participated in by all, is more heart-​to-​heart with the Lord than ever before. There is no bitterness here, just love, compassion, and forgiveness.
It seems whole Body is completely and humbly focused on God, resting in the assurance that He is strong when we are weak.
I can now recommend Abundant Life to all true followers of Jesus without reservation.
Blessings,
Carolyn Pierce

I am giving ALCF two stars because there has been a lot of shaking up in the church in recent years and the last shakeup saw the head pastor, Pastor Hurmon Hamilton, booted out without so much as a chance to say goodbye to the congregation.
The «elders» as they call themselves seem to like to govern exclusively and don’t like too much input from their head pastors. The shakeup before this one (yes, there have been others) saw another pastor removed and seemed to split the elders up… Because now there are only three of them… Well, perhaps there are more now since I stopped going.
Pastor Hurmon is phenomenal though. He truly lets God lead him and I was extremely upset to hear that he had gone. After some searching, I found out that he, half of the congregation and basically the entire praise and worship team left and began a new place to fellowship: New Beginnings Community Church in mountain view. All of my enthusiasm and joy at what ALCF once was is now how I feel about NBCC. Check it out because you won’t be disappointed!

My family and MANY others left abundant life because of a power struggle between the 3 Elders and King Rocky with pastor Hurmun Hamilton who they brought from back east after making several promises to he an his family that they quickly changed. My family was involved with this church for the last 15 years, volunteering our time and money (building fund) with this church… It deeply saddened us when we heard of the pastor Hurmans departure. Saturday service was deeply affected, the service became drastically smaller and then they cut the children’s service program that my nephew had been in since he was 1 years old… with safari kids being cut and the guess speakers they had we decided to leave abundant life. But by the grace of god pastor Hurmon Hamilton started up the NBCC (New Beginning Community Church) with the help and dedication of his many follows and former members of Abundant life. God gave him the right platform to continue bringing people to god. My fathers prays every night for alcf, for the elders and for king Rocky.

How do you just bite the hand that feeds you? You don’t have to search the Word to know that is dead wrong. Nevertheless, I am sincerely praying for the remainder of the flock as forgiveness is available to all including me. «To whom much is given, much is required». I did enjoy the atmosphere of ALCF while it lasted and moreso when Pastor Hurmon was there. NBCCbayarea here I come!!! God didn’t close the door without opening a flood gate! Learning experience to the board at ALCF I hope and pray. God bless you!

I had also been a member of this church since Pastor Paul was there. In fact, I joined the church because of him, then remained after his departure because I was moved by more than just the preaching: the ministries, classes, and children’s programs in particular. Then, after a time without a lead/​teaching pastor, we got Pastor Hurmon. He brought new life to the congregation; I had family members who came back to Christ after attending the Easter program and even just regular Sunday services. What was done to him was wrong. And shocking, and apparently, un-​christlike. I continued to follow him online after his departure and I am so excited that he and some of my other ALCF favorites are starting a new church! I can’t wait to see what God does now:)

This used to be a 5 star church experience that brought me back to Christ. However, the events that have transpired over the past few months have been disheartening. I will not bash a house of the Lord, but I will sum up the basis of my review simply:
2 words, Misguided Elders. 2 more words, Rocky Bridges (most fitting name EVER). 2 final words, Goodbye ALCF.
My family and I will be attending Pastor Hurmon’s new church, and continue to let the word of the lord be funneled through him into our hearts and minds.

Even though we were never members of this church, we attended quite regularly, splitting the time between Abundant Life and our own place of worship. I found it to be one of the most fantastic worship experiences in my life. The congregation was comprised of black, white, Hispanic, Asian and many other ethnicities. The joy of seeing and experiencing people of every hue praising the Lord cannot be overstated. I always imagined that this would be how Heaven will be. The Word was always being preached with power and conviction!!!
We were there when the church lost the previous Pastor due to a moral misstep. As expected, this shocked and demoralized the congregation. As was stated by a previous reviewer, Pastor Hurmon came in as a healing presence. He and his wonderful «first lady» brought the church back from the brink and were moving as God instructs a «leader» of his flock to do. I found him to be humble, gracious, knowledgeable and anointed. His sermons always challenged us to be better Christians, not in a condemning way, but a loving way.
My wife and I were in total shock to find out that this «Man of God» was removed without just cause and in spite of the feelings and desires of the majority of the congregation. I know that the Lord will elevate his Shepherd to even greater heights. May God bless Pastor Hurman and his wife and sustain them during this time. We also are praying for the elders, who have no accountability or restraints.

the Pastor is an excellent speaker, not just preacher but the most motivating motivational speaker I’ve ever heard.
this is what I called «healla good preaching» in a «hella big black church»
I loved it!

I use to attend this church but with the departure of Pastor Hurmon the service will not be the same. The other stand-​ins don’t have an impact on relaying the word of god. Looking for a new church.

I am very sad to hear the departure of Pastor Hurmon this last weekend. I have witnessed how he united the congregation, starting from discipleship training, family building and reaching out to community. I have yet to meet a pastor who is a man after God’s heart, as well as his wisdom to life. With Pastor Hurmon’s departure, the church won’t be the same again and I wouldn’t recommend it. I am at a crossroad to look for a church with a godly pastor, who takes to his heart to shepherd his flock with humility and compassion. I hope he can start a church around here, and not moving back to Boston.
Updates: Good news. He has started a website:
.

I’m sorry, the church just isn’t what it used to be! Spirit of God is what brought me in and has kept me at the church, but due to recent decisions made by only 4 elders (who do not know the people nor our needs) they have single handedly FIRED our pastor who loves us unconditionally and has been supporting us for the last 2 years after some disastrous times. They removed our healing pastor!
I am waiting for the dust to settle and God to reveal what I’m supposed to do next. Some people have already made the decision to leave and this has me heartbroken! At this point I can honestly say I am NOT going to be able to sit under a dysfunctional leadership such as we have right now and trust them to my soul care do men and women that operate this way. I want to be directed and guided by God and those that truly hear his voice and are involved with his people. These elders who have made this decision are not being led by God and doing what has been done. I don’t believe we’re warring against flesh and blood, but against a lot of evil forces and darkness and spiritual warfare, I’m sad to say.
I pray for God’s will to be done on this church and his compassion and healing to once again come to his people. ALCF needs to become guided by God and His Spirit once again if the doors are to remain open!
I want to say that pastor Hurmon Hamilton and his wife Rhonda Hamilton are two of the most godly people I have met, who have a true heart of compassion for there flock and anointing that makes me want to be shepherded by them where ever they go! ALCF has made a huge mistake! My heart goes out to the people that are divided because of this. We need God to rebuild his temple, and I’m waiting on him for just that. To God be the glory!

This is an update. Everything I wrote on 12÷17÷13 was true. As you can see from other reviews, everything has changed. I decided to write my review although I knew trouble was brewing. I had faith that things would be worked out and could not imagine that Pastor Hurmon would be gone and simply had to share my love of this church. Now, I consider the other recent reviews to be accurate.
My two-​star rating is meaningless since I cannot currently recommend the church to others because it has been badly broken. It is extremely painful to say that. My mind had not been completely closed when I went to Saturday’s service to hear the bad news but it was tightly closed by the time I left. What I perceived as immediate combativeness, arrogance and condescension from the elders shocked me to the core. The orchestration of the whole affair, beginning with Pastor Zack Poonan’s sermon the prior weekend, struck me as shabby and felt borderline deceitful.
Through my eyes (only), I see four individual human beings making a monumental decision for a congregation of several thousand people who seem to have had no say whatsoever. I mean the elders no personal harm and include them in my prayers for they will bear the burden of their decision. I’m sure they were convinced their action was in the best interests of the church. However, I am afraid it has resulted in tragedy.
My heart goes out to the pastors, staff and team leaders who are suffering, many whom I have come to know and love. I hope to stay connected with members of the congregation. They are the best and are the core of this church.
Perhaps, some day, God will make clear what His purpose was. I trust he will.

Do not attend or join this church! This church is ruled by four elders who shocked and angered congregation members when they announced today that Pastor Hurmon Hamilton, a true man of God who is loved and admired by congregation members, is leaving ALCF.
Under Pastor Hurmon’s leadership, ALCF rebounded from a terrible crisis; is thriving and growing; and ended 2013 on sound financial footing. This arbitrary and capricious decision by ALCF elders has shattered ALCF. I want to emphasize: there has NO allegation whatsoever of any kind of moral failure by Pastor Hurman.
There are many better options on the peninsula where you can praise God in a loving and respectful environment. I have resigned my membership from ALCF. I do not recommend this church to anyone while it is in the iron grip of four elders who apparently feel they can operate without accountability to the congregation and God they serve.

My husband and I have attended and served at ALCF for 8+ years. As members, we are unhappy to hear from those other than our church leaders that pastor Hurmon Hamilton will no longer be our pastor. The disappointment runs deep– that a decision like this would be made without the voice of the church members. Pastor Hurmon has been essential in the transitions that have taken place at the top bringing unity and the word of God to the broken hearted. He rebuilt the trust that was broken between the congregation and the previous pastors and the elders. The congregation has no voice.

I started coming here when Paul Sheppard was a pastor here. Hes a real good speaker, puts a lil humor in things an really gets the message through an pumps things up. Theres a new pastor here now, hes really good. He gets real serious with it. I Love the music team here. They have alot of great singles events and recovery programs here. They have an upstairs an downstairs seating area.

I visited Abundant for an Easter Play that the church puts together each year. Calling it a play is truly downplaying it. It’s actually a musical, a «Broadway”-style musical as they like to describe it. Watching the congregation get together each night to perform is truly amazing. Seeing them sing, dance and act so passionately is beautiful. Another great thing about this play is that it is absolutely FREE. Yes, free. It’s such a huge production, I couldn’t believe that every single person in attendance was watching his play for free! It was truly a gift to watch this play and I thank my dear friends for inviting me. I’d suggest that if you ever get an opportunity to watch this play, do it. Do it for the experience and do it to support the people who put the work into performing it each night.
Tips? Watch the play on the ground floor. When we got here, it was packed and the line was out the door. We thought that heading upstairs wouldn’t be a problem, but it was hard to see any of the cool things that were happening down below. You can even see the live animals up close when you’re down there. They sometimes, during the intermission walk around upstairs with the animals but I think the best experience would be downstairs.
#368

Disclaimer: This review is not for the church service but the Easter Play!
I came here twice so far, each for their Easter Musical Program, and they were both amazing! Every year they put up this production and give out tickets for free! They are so generous! My sister picked up some and invited our youth group — we were so amazed! I was in awe with the script, singing, props and special effects throughout the whole show! It was very engaging, exciting and had a lot of fun and interesting elements. Plus everyone in the cast and staff were all very friendly. We got to meet them and take pictures after the show. Loved that!
Highlights for me this year:
— Music selection was amazing! All the main characters had strong, beautiful voices and it was fun to hear remake versions of contemporary songs like «I Will Follow You». The way they incorporated the songs into the script was very creative and relevant.
— The live animals! They got donkeys, lambs and goats that we could pet during intermission and after the show! so cute! the kids really loved that!
— Props and effects were so cool! They had angel wings that were retractable, did a clever switch to make it look like water turned into wine, and the stage backdrop & props were just so realistic and breathtaking! The cross scene where they hung Jesus was so well done and realistic… that’s something our church has been trying to get right for a loooong time, so I totally commend them on that scene and how climatic it was.
— There was action, humor and drama all rolled into this one. They had scenes to make you tense, cry, laugh and go «Awww!»… everything was well balanced and it kept you at the edge of your seat wondering whats going to happen next!
Actually, I could probably go on and on about everything I loved about this play … so you get the gist right? Haha: D
Overall, it was an amazing play and I would come again and again! Very enjoyable and a great place to bring friends and new believers. Can’t wait for next year!

I love this church for it’s Diversity.
I miss Pastor Paul and wish him and his family nothing but the best wherever they are at this moment. Even though he is no longer the pastor for this church. Remember we are here for God and not for man.
Blessings!

I came for the first time today to find a new church home. This morning the elders announced that one of the pastors was stepping down due to «personal sin».
Two pastors committing adultery on their wives in just the span of a few years? And the church just seems to gloss over it and keep pushing on (the sermon this morning was called «DON’T BREAK RANK!») as if it wasn’t a serious problem for the congregation or for the family members hurt by this man’s selfish actions.
Needless to say, I won’t be back.

cookie?