Pastor Jeff and Michelle Bower
Jeff’s teenage years were tumultuous of his own making. Seeking excitement and peer affirmation, he experimented with and ended up addicted to drugs. The double life of Eagle Scout, honors student, musician, and baseball player on one hand combined with drug use and broken relationships on the other caused self-hatred and significant pain to many around him. At the age of 20, Jeff’s life was spared by divine intervention as a passenger in a treacherous high-speed car crash along the coast. Receiving undeserved grace in this tragic moment led Jeff to saving faith in Jesus Christ at Agape church.
Since then, Jeff has served the mission and people of Agape church as a musician, worship leader, board member, teacher, life-group leader, elder, missionary, and assistant pastor. Most recently in August of 2018, Jeff left a twelve year career as a technology entrepreneur to accept the call to serve Agape as lead pastor, becoming just the third lead pastor in the church’s 40 year history.
Jeff and his wife Michelle live with their three children in a Templeton farmhouse that has been in the Bower family for generations. Michelle is a gifted children’s ministry leader and enjoys blessing others with healthy home-cooked meals. Aaron (10), Abigail (8), and Joshua (5), are all students at Christ Classical School in San Luis Obispo and enjoy a variety of recreational sports, boogie boarding, and the unique blessings of work and play found in country life. Jeff is also a private pilot and enjoys aviation, songwriting, baseball (as long as the Dodgers are winning), jazz, ping-pong, and interesting books.