Steve Ross grew up in Lynwood, CA with a single mother who spent just as much time caring for at-risk children and teens from the surrounding community as she did raising her own. In 2001, he married his childhood best friend, Jamie, whose parents were church planters in South Central LA. When God arrested their hearts and later called Steve to ministry, it was looking back on their parents’ Christlike compassion and longstanding commitment to the margins that eventually led to a heart for church planting. Arise Ventura is the third multiethnic justice-seeking church plant they’ve been involved in launching.
Arise Ventura gathers downtown, close to Ventura’s Pier. On the one hand, the suburban beach town of Ventura is paradise-like. But it is also a fractured community; ethnicity, class, and culture are pretexts for division and separation. For this reason, Arise Ventura is focused on planting a gospel-centered multiethnic church committed to seeing Ventura reconciled to God and one another.
Watch our brand new video about Arise Ventura below!
