Located in downtown San Jose, California, Westgate Church is creating a physical, communal environment in the heart of Silicon Valley where Christians and community members alike can come together in a shared space.
Westgate’s Saratoga campus is situated across the street from one of California’s largest new developments. As a response to the new urban fabric emerging in the area, Westgate is leveraging its existing property to create spaces that naturally connect to it. Residents who spend time in this district will be able to easily find their way from the new development onto Westgate’s campus.
“Our church has a pretty rich history of trying to give as much of ourselves away as possible to our city and the world outside our walls,” says Westgate’s Lead Pastor Jay Kim. “We try to give a lot of money, time and energy away for kingdom work.”
According to Kim, Westgate’s leadership team began to dream about what it might look like to share the church’s existing space with the city after acquiring an adjoining lot with better access to the main road. They decided to make plans for a new education building that would serve numerous purposes, not just for the church, but for the community as well. My team at PlainJoe, a Storyland Studio, came alongside Westgate to create the concept for these new mixed-use spaces.
A Gateway for the Valley
The big idea we crafted for Westgate’s expansion is Valley Gateway. Essentially, Westgate will act as the gateway to creativity, innovation and discovery, offering a taste of kingdom transformation to the San Jose community. Valley Gateway is inspired by John 10:9–10: “I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. … I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”
In our master plan, the first floor features a café and a black box theater space. The second-floor concept has new office spaces for church staff members. Finally, the third and fourth floors are residences for church planters, pastoral residents and interns. Living expenses are high in Silicon Valley, and these residences will give seminary students and new pastors a cost-effective place to live while they study and begin their work in ministry.
Outside, the church plans to convert an existing parking lot into an area where church and community members can spend time together. The resulting communal space will feature a playground families can enjoy, as well as a grassy, open seating area. Westgate hopes to include a coffee shop it can lease below market rent to bless a local business. The lot will serve as a means to invite the city to spend time at Westgate.
Kim says he’s often troubled by the fact that church staff are largely surrounded only by fellow believers and pastors. While he says he loves these faith-centered gatherings, he also sees the need to extend Jesus’ love into the surrounding community. In the case of Silicon Valley, the community is overwhelmingly secular.
“In Santa Clara County, there are 1.9 million people, over 90% of whom identify as something other than evangelical Christian. It’s one of the most secular places in our country, much like many large, urban centers on the coasts: very post-Christian and in need of Jesus,” he says.
‘A Real Place in Real Time’
Kim is the author of Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places and Things in the Digital Age (IVP). Released in 2020, the book took a deep dive into how the church has been impacted by the digital age. Ironically, its March 2020 release overlapped with the onset of the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns, which forced churches around the world even further into digital and interactive spaces. But as the world collectively experienced that season, it became clearer than ever just how important physical spaces truly are—not just to the church, but to society.
In Analog Church, Kim argues that the key to reaching a new generation of Christians might actually lie in gathering together in physical spaces. That insight has never been truer.
“We’re more disconnected and isolated than ever,” Kim says. “We’re more interconnected through digital technology than we’ve ever been, but in terms of actual embodied human experience, the rates of loneliness, depression and isolation are at an all-time high. It bodes well for the church that we can actually offer a truly counterintuitive, countercultural space. It’s an actual invitation to gather, belong and participate in an embodied community. And I think that is the future for the church.”
Kim doesn’t discount the importance of digital worship services or other technological advances that have benefited the church. Rather, he sees those things as a means to an end. According to Kim, there’s no way a digital world can offer “actual belonging to actual people in a real place, in real time.”
Ultimately, that’s what Westgate aims to do with its future expansion.
“We can show up to our property every day and know we’ve done our part to welcome an unbelieving world,” Kim says. “At the very least, we can extend our property as a means of love and welcome and hospitality in hopes that over the long haul, it might shift the paradigm of a post-Christian city.”