A Quiet Revival
It was Sunday morning, and Brad was all alone on Pinnacle Mountain. His grief was heavy. He needed time and space to process.
He didn’t expect two middle school girls to walk up and talk to him.
“The girls were part of Pleasant Valley’s middle school group having their worship service up there,” says Jonathan Storment, the church’s pastor. “He’s probably thinking, ‘Where are your parents? Why are they letting you talk to some strange man?’”
But the girls saw how sad he looked. “Are you okay?” they asked.
“My mom died a year ago,” Brad told them. “I’m just kind of feeling that right now.”
“Can we pray for you?” one of the girls asked.
The girls prayed with Brad and invited him to worship with their group. Brad agreed.
The following Sunday, Brad came to Pleasant Valley Church of Christ’s service. After that, he joined the church’s men’s group, BetterMan. Four months later, he was baptized.
“God was doing something in his life, and he’s not the same guy he was,” Jonathan says. “And that’s just one example among plenty of others. Every week, people we didn’t invite are showing up.” Jonathan pauses. “God is doing something. It’s a quiet revival. It seems like it’s happening everywhere, not just at our church. It’s really, really inspiring and exciting.”
Back to Their Roots
Pleasant Valley Church of Christ is part of the Restoration Movement, a 250-year-old movement that began with a vision for Christian unity. “It was basically like the OG nondenominational movement,” Jonathan says. “That’s what the goal was—unity.”
But a hundred years later, many Churches of Christ, including Pleasant Valley, had drifted from that vision and became sectarian. “We’re the only ones going to heaven,” Jonathan says. “That’s what a lot of people know about Churches of Christ.”
Fifteen years ago, Pleasant Valley’s leaders began spending time with Christians from other traditions through things such as Bible Study Fellowship. “They started opening their mind that they weren’t the only ones in God’s kingdom,” Jonathan says.
The church’s elders decided they wanted to get back to their roots and focus on unity. In 2018, the church needed to find a new pastor to oversee this shift.
They called Jonathan, who had been pastoring in Abilene, Texas, for sixteen years. At first, Jonathan didn’t think he was a good fit. But when he talked with the elders, he saw something that made him reconsider. “I could tell our elders were courageous. They knew this was a different trajectory.”
Jonathan arrived almost ten years ago to shepherd the congregation through a huge change. “I’ve been here since 2018, and man, I think it’s one of the healthiest churches I’ve ever worked with.”
Thick Fellowship
“When people come to faith at PV, or they come from another tribe, one of the things they notice is how thick the fellowship is.” By ‘thick fellowship,’ Jonathan means a close-knit community where people actually show up for each other.
When Jonathan and his family moved back to Arkansas, they moved into his childhood home. His parents rented it out for twenty years, and it needed major renovations. “200 people from the church spent thousands of hours just helping us.”
When Pleasant Valley’s executive pastor’s fourteen-year-old daughter got blood cancer, the congregation surrounded the family with support. “I don’t think they made a meal for a year,” Jonathan says. “Stuff like that happens all the time. It’s quiet, and it’s just kind of assumed.”
Jonathan says the church’s practice of singing a cappella reflects a culture of participation. Unlike churches with worship bands leading from the stage, Pleasant Valley’s entire congregation sings together. Every voice matters.
“I love instrumental worship. The churches I’ve worked at in the past were instrumental. So, I’m not hung up on only singing a cappella,” Jonathan says. “But I can tell you, over time, it’s a spiritual habit that forms you. Church is not done by professionals. It’s done by all of us.”
Good News to the City
Churches with a close-knit community can easily become internally focused. Pleasant Valley has resisted that temptation. “That’s one of the things I’m most proud of with our church,” Jonathan says. “You don’t want to invite people to belong to something that’s not worth belonging to. One of the things they have responded really well to is just to be the Good News to the city.”
In March 2023, a tornado tore through Little Rock, devastating neighborhoods near Pleasant Valley. The church mobilized immediately, serving more than a thousand affected families. A Christian relief organization from Nashville provided supplies, but it was the local church community that showed up day after day.
“People came out of the woodworks from Fellowship Bible Church,” Jonathan says. “It was our neighborhood that was affected more than theirs. They sent dozens of volunteers who worked hundreds of hours to serve people who weren’t their literal neighbors.”
Pleasant Valley has also launched a college ministry at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Half of the UALR wrestling team now attends the church, including Caden Darwin—Charles Darwin’s great-great-grandson—who was baptized a year ago. At six-foot-six and 285 pounds, Caden is a tremendous wrestler.
“At their first meet earlier this month, I looked around, and there were a hundred PV people here,” Jonathan says. “Half of them aren’t wrestling fans, but they’re fans of these guys. They really like these guys.”
The wrestlers have become leaders on campus. “Those guys are on fire,” Jonathan says. “They’re preaching and doing stuff at their campus devotional that happens a couple times a week.”
Rika came to Pleasant Valley four years ago as a Muslim from Iran. She was baptized at the church and now works as a greeter at Dillard’s and Walmart. She constantly invites people to church, so much so that both places have had to ask her to stop.
“She can see the gospel for what it is. She didn’t grow up with it, and so she doesn’t take it for granted,” Jonathan says. “She’s the best evangelist we’ve got. So many people have come to faith through Rika.”
Two years ago, Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders asked whether anyone from the Middle East could pray at her prayer breakfast. Jonathan gave her Rika’s name. “It was the highlight of her life,” Jonathan says. “It was so cool watching Governor Sanders dote on her and honor her.”
Going Deeper
For the last five years, the church has focused on discipleship groups (D-groups) where people learn what it actually means to follow Jesus. Hundreds of people have gone through these D-groups. These same-gender groups all begin the same way: with everyone sharing their spiritual autobiography.
“During the first four to six weeks, you’re just sharing your own story,” Jonathan says. “When it’s your turn to share, you feel exposed and vulnerable. I’ve seen church leaders confess things they’ve been carrying around for a long time. Sometimes people share similar struggles, and you realize you’re not alone. But to be in a group of brothers where, after you share, this secret shame that’s been weighing you down is lifted, and you hear the other brothers say, ‘Is that it? God’s grace covers you, man.’”
After the spiritual autobiographies, the groups go through a catechism that covers the essentials of the Christian faith. That is followed by the group learning spiritual practices together. “The secret sauce is the spiritual autobiographies, confession, and then the practices,” Jonathan says. “You’re actually forming spiritual habits.”
One woman who went through a D-group had recently divorced after an abusive marriage. She carried a lot of trauma from that relationship. “She said at the end of it, ‘This helped me heal more than any therapist ever could,’” Jonathan says.
The church also runs Regeneration (ReGen), a recovery program that’s both a 12-step program and a discipleship tool. “People are finding sobriety from a lot of different things. Guys who have struggled with porn addiction for decades come out of hiding and can look people in the eye and say, ‘I once was, and now I am.’ The shame has lifted.”
In My Father’s House
Pleasant Valley’s commitment to unity goes beyond its own walls. Years before Jonathan arrived, one of the church’s pastors, Jeff Spry, helped start City Connections, which works with churches, nonprofits, and community partners to serve needs in Central Arkansas. “City Connections is great. Most of our networking and working with other churches still happens through them,” Jonathan says.
Through City Connections, Pleasant Valley serves alongside churches in initiatives such as the Hunger Relief Army. Jeff Medders, whom I’ve known for a decade, runs it. He goes to other churches, and they do food packing parties. It helps to feed hungry Arkansans and gets the churches involved, both monetarily but also with their time. Everybody from Senior Saints to a 10-year-old can help make those nutritious meals.”
These partnerships across denominational lines reflect a conviction Jonathan shares often at Pleasant Valley. “One of the things we say at PV all the time is, ‘How many churches are there in Little Rock?’ One church.”
“Jesus said, ‘In my Father’s house, there are many rooms,’” Jonathan says. “What unites us is way bigger than what divides us. I’m very grateful to get to call people at Fellowship Bible Church and St. Andrews and New Life and First Baptist my brothers and sisters in Christ.”
We are grateful for the exceptional work of Pleasant Valley Church of Christ and other churches in our cities that are working together as one Church of the city. They are helping the whole Church grow.
Speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. From him, the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.
Ephesians 4:15-16
