Our Story

In summer 2016, Pastor Carlos and his family closed a season of life in New Jersey and moved back to California (where Carlos was raised) to respond to the call to plant a new church in the city of Visalia. At Imago Church we like to say that “hope is built through relationships.” As a matter of fact, the way in which Carlos came out to plant a church in Visalia was through relationships, through a friendship with our parent church, Sunrise Community Church located in Tulare, CA who initially extended the call for Carlos to come out to Visalia with the intention of planting a new church.

Since the Corro family arrived in the central valley, God has gathered together a core team of people to work together in planting this new church. We've been together in mission, discerning, praying, reaching out and building relationships with the people of this city that God so passionately loves.

The vision that God has placed on our hearts for this new church in Visalia is that we would be a gospel-centered, multicultural community where hope is built through restored relationships.

Mission & Vision

Our mission stems from this vision. Furthermore, an aspect of being gospel-centered is that we will be a church that is good news to the city of Visalia, we will constantly be inviting seekers in and sending believers out. Being multicultural simply means that our aim is to reflect our city and its rich diversity. Being a church where hope is built through relationship means that we will be a church that strives to connect the city. Visalia, similar to other cities across the country in many ways is a tale of two cities. We aim to plant a church in a boundary neighborhood where those “two cities” meet. We believe that a fruit of the gospel is restoration, as a church we strive to help people restore their connection with God and with each other.

Name and Theme

After prayer and deliberation, at the beginning of this year the Servant Leadership Team decided on “ Imago Church” as the name of this new church plant in Visalia. The name “Imago” comes from the Latin Imago Dei which means Image of God. This is a particularly fitting phrase as two of the main theological and practical inspirations for our church are identity and purpose. Identity in the image of God and purpose in the image of Christ. There were two verses that were particularly instrumental in leading us to this name, the first was Genesis 1:27 “So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” And the the second was 2 Corinthians 3:18 “And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”

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