On a single block of West First Street in downtown Chico, a congregation has gathered for generations to worship, teach, and serve. Bidwell Presbyterian Church sits within walking distance of Chico State University, and that proximity shapes everything from the rhythm of its Sunday schedule to the way it thinks about reaching the next generation. Inside, the sanctuary hosts both a classic service at 8:30 AM and a modern service at 10:00 AM, both offered in person and streamed online. Outside, the church's life extends through children's ministry, youth work, a college program anchored at the CSU campus, a post-graduate leadership cohort, and a network of local and global mission partnerships that spans the city, the county, and several continents. The church describes its community as a body of believers shaped by G.R.A.C.E., a name that doubles as an acronym for its core values and a statement of posture toward anyone who walks through the door.
Sunday Worship: Two Services, One Family
Bidwell Pres holds two Sunday services in its sanctuary on West First Street, and the contrast between them is intentional. The 8:30 AM Classic service leans traditional. The 10:00 AM Modern service is contemporary. Both are livestreamed on the church's YouTube channel so that anyone, anywhere, can join the service as it happens.
Full childcare is available at the 10:00 AM service. The nursery opens at the beginning of worship. Children in Pre-K through fifth grade begin the service with their parents and are then transitioned by Kidwell staff into Kidwell Park classrooms. The church's atmosphere is welcoming, relaxed, and genuine, with a clear teaching style rooted in Scripture and a service length of roughly an hour or a little more. Dress is come-as-you-are, and greeters are posted throughout the building to help newcomers find their way.
For those joining online or in person who need captions, Bidwell offers live closed captioning through the Speaksee app, which connects directly to a smartphone or tablet. Worship is also distributed through a podcast on Podomatic, and recent sermons and ministry videos are collected on the BPC YouTube channel.
A Community Shaped by G.R.A.C.E.
The letters G.R.A.C.E. are the spine of Bidwell Presbyterian's identity, and each letter stands for a value the church teaches and tries to live out. Grace comes first, and the church anchors this value in Ephesians 2:8-10: For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God. In response to that gift, the congregation seeks to love others with a compassionate, open, and non-judgmental attitude.
Reaching Out follows. Drawing on 2 Corinthians 5:18-20, Bidwell Pres sees itself as an ambassador for Christ, sent into a hurting world. The church does not exist for itself but for those around it, and reaching out is both a Sunday rhythm and a weekly practice through partnerships and service projects.
Authenticity asks the congregation to be real. Quoting 2 Corinthians 3:17-18, the church seeks freedom from hypocrisy and a transparency that admits fears and flaws. Celebration follows, marked by prayer, Scripture reading, singing, and service as ways to rejoice in God's goodness, with Psalm 100 and Philippians 4:4 setting the tone. Extravagant Generosity rounds out the list, casting stewardship as the heartfelt response to a God who gives first; the church commits time, money, and skills in service to neighbors near and far, citing 1 Thessalonians 2:8 and 2 Corinthians 8:7 as guides.
Five restoration themes gather around these values: restoration of relationships (Psalm 85:4), of creation (Revelation 21:1), of justice (Micah 6:8), of community (Jeremiah 29:7), and of personal life (Psalm 23:3). Each theme shapes how a ministry, an event, or a small group is framed.
Kidwell Park: A Place Where Kids Are Treasured
Bidwell Presbyterian's children's ministry is called Kidwell Park, and the name shows up everywhere from signage to social media handles. Kidwell Park describes itself as a place where kids are treasured and seen as gifts from God, and where they can develop and explore a deeper relationship with Jesus as their friend forever.
The team shows kids God's love through exposure to His Word, His People, and His FUN, both through Sunday services and through special events and summer camps. Full childcare is available Sunday mornings at the 10:00 AM service, with the nursery opening at the start of worship and Pre-K through fifth grade transitioning to Kidwell classrooms partway through.
Safety is taken seriously. Staff and childcare workers are CPR and First Aid trained. Volunteers go through thorough background checks and training. The child-to-staff ratio is 4:1. Parents register at the welcome desk or online and are assigned a number that helps staff locate them during the service. A Sick Children Policy lists specific symptoms that should keep a child home, including fever within the previous 24 hours, vomiting or diarrhea within the previous 24 hours, eye discharge, green or yellow runny nose, sore throat, questionable rash, persistent cough, or head lice. Antibiotics are expected to have at least a 48-hour head start.
Larger events include Vacation Bible Experience, called VBX, during the summer, and Trick or Trunk in the fall. Parents are invited to participate in both. Mia Boon-Kemper serves as the Children's Ministry Director and can be reached through the church office at (530) 343-1484. Parents who want text updates can text the word kidwell to 94000 and follow the prompts.
BPC @the 015: Junior High and High School
The youth ministry of Bidwell Presbyterian Church is called BPC @the 015, and it teaches students that they are cherished children of God empowered by His Spirit to live courageously. Students attend the 10:00 AM worship with their parents on Sunday mornings and then transition to room 015, with the exception of the first Sunday of every month, when the program pauses.
Beyond Sunday mornings, BPC @the 015 has a midweek gathering for junior high and high school students, plus a calendar of upcoming events. Every participant in any youth event is required to have a medical and liability release form on file before attending. Mary Lopez is the Youth Ministry Director and is the main point of contact for parents and prospective volunteers. Text updates are available by texting bpc015 to 94000.
College and Young Adults: Anchored Next to Chico State
Bidwell Presbyterian Church's college and young adult ministry is built around its location next to the CSU Chico campus, a few blocks from West First Street. The mission is to anchor young people in a lifelong journey of Christ-centered, spiritually healthy, Kingdom-oriented growth within the family of God. The pastor of this ministry, Ray Medina, points to a season of life that is full of curiosity and energy, and to a generation that longs for authentic community, gritty opportunities to serve, and deeper engagement with matters of faith.
The ministry runs several recurring touchpoints. Study Hall offers CSU Chico and Butte College students a distraction-free space to prepare for finals, with free coffee, tea, brain-boosting snacks, strong Wi-Fi, plenty of quiet study space, and free parking next to the entrance, with a secure rear entrance in downtown Chico. The space returns each December and May. Practicing the Way is a fall small group exploring what it means to follow Jesus in college and beyond, meeting Wednesday evenings in room 012. A weekly Sunday afternoon conversation at Naked Lounge offers space for honest dialogue about God and meaning, with the option to listen or talk. A Young Adult Small Group meets every other week to share community and reflect on the previous Sunday's sermon at Bidwell Pres. On the first Sunday of every month, the ministry hosts a meal and a chance to hang out with new friends.
Service is woven into the rhythm as well. Students serve alongside the Good Neighbor Club at the Jesus Center, helping prepare and serve meals for neighbors experiencing homelessness. During fall move-in, BPC partners with Chico State to help incoming students find their dorms and to host a welcome team on the BPC patio with food.
Two text lists keep students and career-aged young adults plugged in. College students can text bpccollege to 94000. Career twenty-somethings can text bpccareer20 to 94000.
Seasoned Adults and Small Groups
For adults sixty and over, Bidwell Presbyterian hosts a ministry called 60 Plus Connection, which began out of a book club in 2018 and meets several times a year for fun and fellowship. The group shares stories, and members find community with peers. Recipes are shared online through a community recipes folder.
Barnabas is a men's Bible study that meets Wednesdays from 7:00 to 8:00 AM in the Fellowship Hall. All walks of life are welcome. Life Groups are the church's small group ministry, with men's groups, women's groups, discipleship classes, and community life offerings all organized through the church's registration system. Small Group questions are accessible through a My BPC Profile once someone has been placed in a group. A recommended-reading list runs from Bonhoeffer's Life Together to Philip Yancey on grace and Steve Young's sports memoir.
Joining in God's Restoration: Serving Chico
Service is woven into Bidwell Pres's identity under the heading Joining in God's Restoration. The church frames every member as the head, heart, and hands of Jesus, called to enrich the lives of others in the church, the community, and the world. Kristen Keller, the Missions Team Coordinator, helps connect members to the right opportunities.
Serve Chico is the church's signature local service initiative, held twice a year in spring and fall. Projects range from singing and fellowshipping with the elderly to landscaping and painting for mission partners across the city. Serve Chico is open to anyone who wants to join, not only to Bidwell members, and the church invites other congregations and small groups across Chico to participate. Project proposals are submitted through a Project Proposal Form.
Serve Chico State happens each fall as college students move into their dorms. BPC helps students find their dorms, assists with move-in, and sets up a welcome team on the BPC patio with food. Once every other month, on the first Sunday, BPC members serve breakfast at the Jesus Center, with roles in food prep, cooking, serving, or singing. The Citrus Team partners with Citrus Elementary through Reading Pals, Math Pals, and Science Investigations, and the church keeps a Bobcat Den stocked with items children can earn through good behavior.
Hope Village brings housing to people transitioning out of shelters, and BPC has adopted a newly housed resident as part of its ongoing work. During holidays, the church collects canned food around Thanksgiving and participates in events such as Run For Food and Chico Spring Clean.
Mission Partners Around the World and Across Town
Bidwell Presbyterian maintains a long list of both global and local mission partners, and members are invited to support them through prayer, giving, and short-term service trips. Impact Teams help members plug into specific partners.
Globally, BPC walks alongside Bridging the Gap4Water, which has provided safe water, sanitation, and hygiene training to more than 55,000 people in Uganda and Zambia. Casa Hogar, also known as Guarderia Dios Provehera, runs a daycare and orphanage on the Baja Peninsula of Mexico for children of families who often cannot afford safe childcare. EvaSUE is a missional fellowship that has grown to more than 50,000 university students in 176 fellowships throughout Ethiopia, one of the largest campus ministries in the world. Horn of Africa works among unreached people groups in the region using disciple-making movements. illuminAid fights world poverty with video, training local educators to share life-saving information in remote villages. New Life Homes in eSwatini provides loving homes for 40 orphans, a preschool through seventh-grade school, and a 195-acre farm for food security. The U.S. Foundation for the Children of Haiti, which BPC has supported for more than twenty years, runs two homes including one for severely disabled children, two elementary schools, a college, and a hospital. World Relief Sacramento helps newly arrived refugees and immigrants with housing, employment, cultural adjustment, and essential resources.
Locally, BPC partners with the Ambassadors of Reconciliation Ministries, a coalition working with those affected by incarceration; the Chico Food Project, which collects blue bags of non-perishables six times a year; Citrus Elementary; Habitat for Humanity Butte County; InterVarsity Fellowship at CSU Chico; the Jesus Center, which runs sober sheltering, transitional housing, and the Renewal Center for families experiencing homelessness; Orchard Church; the Salvation Army, which BPC has partnered with for more than twelve years to prepare and serve Sunday dinners; The Forgotten Initiative for foster care and vulnerable adults; True North Housing Alliance and the Torres Shelter; and Young Life, which reaches adolescents unfamiliar with the Christian life.
Care Ministries: Deacons, Meals, and Prayer
Bidwell Pres describes its Care Ministries as existing to be Jesus' loving presence, his hands and feet, in very tangible and deliberate ways. The Board of Deacons visits the hospitalized and elderly, takes meals to new parents or those recovering from hospitalization, extends hospitality on Sundays after worship, prays actively for known prayer requests, and distributes beneficent funds to those experiencing financial hardship. Limited funds are available for non-members.
The Meals Ministry is a network of volunteers within BPC who serve one another by providing ready-to-eat meals during life crises. The Correspondence ministry sends cards and notes of encouragement, sympathy, praise, or recovery. Visitations bring the love of Christ to those who are hospitalized, in care facilities, or homebound, with phone-call connections available when in-person visits are not possible.
Divorce Care is a structured support ministry for individuals and families walking through divorce, with separate signups for ongoing groups. A prayer wall gathers prayer requests, and approximately 200 members of the congregation are actively committed to praying regularly for those requests. Anyone can submit a prayer request through an online form.
Creation Care at Bidwell Pres
Among Bidwell Pres's distinctive ministries is Creation Care, a team-based effort to guide the congregation in preserving and restoring God's creation. The team celebrates God's grace and glory in creation, integrates creation care into discipleship, updates the church's facilities for energy efficiency, and encourages members to love their neighbors through environmental stewardship.
The ministry's Bible reading list includes Genesis 1 and 2, Job 38-39, Psalm 8, Psalm 104, Psalm 147, Isaiah 11 and 65, Joel 2, Romans 8:18-25, and Revelation 21-22. The team recommends The Green Bible and points to resources from the Evangelical Environmental Network, Creation Justice Ministries, Science for the Church, and the Butte Environmental Council.
Practical suggestions include setting thermostats at or below 68 in winter and at or above 78 in summer, participating in Earth Hour, shopping locally, choosing businesses with sustainable practices, walking instead of driving, eating less fast food and processed food, choosing seafood with the MSC blue fish label, organizing the refrigerator weekly, composting at home, switching to refillable mugs and refillable bottles, choosing products in containers other than plastic, and joining the BPC Mission Ranch Bike Path Clean Up Response Team. A Chico sorting guide outlines local recycling, and the church highlights that Creation-friendly products exist across categories.
The Bidwell Pres Cohort
The Bidwell Pres Cohort is a 12-week, post-graduate program for four to twelve recent college graduates between the ages of 20 and 27. The cohort runs from the week of Labor Day in September until two weeks before Thanksgiving in November. Associates live, work, and serve in Chico while being co-mentored by members of BPC.
The program includes an online post-grad leadership class accredited by Fuller Theological Seminary, with graduate-level credits available upon completion; a co-mentor from BPC; ministry within a healthy, vibrant church in downtown Chico; and foundations for lifelong leadership growth and spiritual formation. Applications are submitted online, and the church follows up within a week. The Cohort is the church's commitment to developing young adults in their sense of vocation, or what the church calls Kingdom calling, a process of forming identity in God's image, formation as a follower of Christ, and purpose as a leader and influencer.
Weddings, Facility Use, and Hospitality
Bidwell Pres's historic sanctuary seats 430 with 52 pews and a center aisle 61 feet 6 inches long, a backdrop the church has used for weddings for many years. The church holds that marriage is a covenant between a woman and a man who, before God, make a lifelong commitment to each other, and that a wedding ceremony marks the beginning of a union between the husband and wife and Christ. Weddings are conducted under the direction of one of the pastors, and requests for a guest pastor to participate can be discussed at the first meeting. Several pre-wedding sessions with the pastor cover Christian marriage and the ceremony itself.
The accessible lower-level area features a large reception hall that comfortably seats 200 for a sit-down meal, equipped with special lighting and audiovisual and sound equipment. A commercially licensed kitchen and certified hospitality staff provide restaurant-quality meals for any group. Several small to medium-sized rooms, equipped with sound and audio-visual, are available with on-site staff to support events. Funerals and memorials are also hosted at Bidwell. Lea Hall serves as Hospitality Director and Events Coordinator and is the main contact for facility rental inquiries.
Leadership, Elders, and Staff
The pastoral team is led by Senior Pastor Henry Hansen, who grew up in Petaluma, earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Arizona, his Master of Divinity at Princeton Seminary, and a doctorate while serving at First Presbyterian Church of Burlingame. Before coming to Bidwell, he served as an associate at First Presbyterian Church of Ridgewood in New Jersey. He is a jail minister, chairs the Ambassadors for Reconciliation board, and maintains a private practice as a certified spiritual director. Greg Cootsona, who holds a Ph.D. in Christian Education and previously served at Bidwell for twelve years, is the Pastor of Discipleship & Care. He has served as an associate pastor at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian in New York City and is a guest lecturer at CSU Chico. Susanna Hoke is a rotational guest preacher and a Chico State alum with a Master's in Global Leadership from Fuller Seminary and an MDiv from Seattle Pacific Seminary. She is married to Steve and has three children.
Ray Medina is the Pastor of College & Young Adults. Mia Boon-Kemper is the Children's Ministry Director, and Mary Lopez is the Youth Ministry Director. Rachel Arnold serves as the Director of Worship and the Arts. David Scholz directs the Chancel Choir and Dara Scholz serves as organist. Lauren Mesa is the Coordinator of Visitation, Care & Spiritual Formation, and Kristen Keller is the Missions Team Coordinator. Grace Muster is the College Coordinator.
The session of ruling elders includes Joel Gist (Youth Ministry Elder), Katie Leach (College & Young Adults Elder), Jordan Colby (Nominating Elder), Debbie Henley (Congregational Care Elder), Ruth McKalip (Session Clerk), Cheryl Bates (Children's Ministry Elder), Cindy Sockey (Missions Elder), Jim Morgan (Finance Elder), and Stuart Kurtz (Personnel Elder). Two additional elder seats, for Adult Discipleship and Community Life, are listed as TBD.
The church office is open Monday through Thursday from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM and on Fridays from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM. The mailing address is 208 W. 1st Street, Chico, CA 95928.
Giving, Connection, and the Church Center App
Bidwell Presbyterian offers multiple ways to give. Online giving is set up through My BPC on a desktop or through the Church Center app on a phone, where recurring donations can be scheduled. Members can also give in person with cash or check using the pew envelopes, by mail to the church address, by setting up BPC as a bill pay through online banking, by donating appreciated stock, or by texting Give to 1-866-591-5666.
The Church Center app, available on the iPhone App Store and Google Play, keeps members connected to events, small group questions, giving records, and the directory. A connection card is available online for newcomers who want to share their information. An all-church email signup keeps the wider community informed about events, opportunities, and prayer needs. Daily devotionals from the Presbyterian Church (USA) are linked through the My BPC menu for members who want to keep up with a daily rhythm of Scripture and prayer.