Altadena, CA | From Prayer to Mission
“We long to see God’s Kingdom come to earth, and that is our passion these days,” Jacquie says. “And I don’t even think it was on our radar before [the Cohort].”
Jacquie was part of Novo’s very first women’s prayer cohort 11 years ago. She drove an hour from Altadena to the Novo (then CRM) office, where she had a radical encounter with Jesus during inner healing prayer.
During that prayer time, Jesus brought her back to a traumatic memory from when she was eight and revealed three lies she had come to believe: I better take care of myself. No one’s watching out for me. I’m unloveable. Jesus showed her that he had loved her her entire life.
At the time, Jacquie had been married to Alan for 30 years. She realized that years of believing she was unloveable had kept her from letting her husband care for her. That encounter with Jesus changed her marriage. She drove home and asked Alan, “Where has this been all my life?”
Jacquie wanted others to experience what she had encountered, so the following year she brought two friends to the Cohort. The year after that, she asked the Cohort team, “If I could get 30 people in my living room, would you come and do this in our neck of the woods?” They got 40.
That small gathering grew into a significant part of their church’s life. Over the past nine years, more than 900 people—including about a third of the pastoral staff—have taken the Cohort, and inner healing and listening prayer are transforming the church’s culture, from women’s ministry to youth ministry.
When the 2025 fires devastated Altadena, Jacquie and Alan lost their home. More than 200 families in their church were affected, and the church leaned into listening and inner healing prayer as they cared for people who were hurting. They also ramped up prayer-walking efforts in neighborhoods devastated by the fire. Jacquie and Alan chose to remain in the same area and are now building relationships in a new neighborhood just three miles from their old one.
Jacquie and Alan’s ministry doesn’t stop at the church doors. In addition to facilitating Prayer, Disciple-Making, and Bridge Cohorts, they’ve become intentional about sharing Jesus in the ordinary places God has put them. They lead Discovery Bible Studies with the couples Alan plays pickleball with, build relationships with their neighbors, and have “church after church” (aka lunch) at a local bar. They’ve had opportunities to talk about Jesus, pray with people, and bless those around them.
The Cohort has dramatically changed what retirement looks like for both of them. Today, Jacquie serves on the Novo board, and she and Alan continue looking for ways to help others experience the transformation they’ve found in Jesus.
“We long to see God’s Kingdom come to earth, and that is our passion these days,” Jacquie says. “And I don’t even think it was on our radar before [the Cohort].”
That passion is still unfolding. This fall, Jacquie and their Cohort team tried something new, combining the Activating Prayer Cohort and The Bridge into an Activating Prayer Bootcamp. The inaugural Bootcamp brought together 145 people, with the hope of launching even more people into mission throughout the San Gabriel Valley.
