Remembering Pastor Mark Levering, founding pastor at Sierra Bible Church
Pastor Mark Levering, the founding pastor at Sierra Bible Church, known to many as Pastor Mark during his 40 years leading Sierra Bible’s nondenominational congregation, died April 1, ending his 10-year struggle with prostate cancer. He was 73 years old.
Levering didn’t found Sierra Bible Church all on his own. There were 10 founding families in Twain Harte, Sonora and elsewhere in Tuolumne County who got together and decided to create their own church in the early 1970s. The founding families eventually recruited Levering, a native of Southern California, from Dallas Theological Seminary.
The founding families were committed to establishing a Bible-teaching, Christcentered church in the Sonora area.
“We thought Sonora could use another church,” Bill Polley, 82, a resident of Twain
Harte since 1970, said Tuesday in a phone interview. Polley is among Sierra Bible Church's founding families, and he's an elder emeritus for the church.
“We were all young families and we all had kids and we just thought we'd like to have a church to raise our families in,” Polley said. “We felt motivated to do it. We were all in our late 20s to 30s.”
Polley and his family initially attended Evangelical Free Church in Twain Harte, where they met other people who became founding families of Sierra Bible Church. Other founding family members included Bob and Dorothy Woodford, Leonard and Nancy Woodside, Gene and Noni Mueller, and Ed and Barbara Anderson, all Sonora residents.
“We had a vision for two things, to have a youth ministry for our kids and we were also interested in missions,” Polley said. “We kind of wanted to do our own focus. The mission part initially was to support other people doing it, and build relationships and maybe eventually go on mission trips.”
The Polleys, Woodfords, Woodsides, Muellers, Andersons and other founding families didn't make any effort to join a denomination. They were young and thought they could do a church on their own. They never thought they needed to be part of a denomination.
“We're here for Jesus,” Polley said. “That's why we named it Sierra Bible Church. The Bible. We believed in Jesus and the Bible, the New Testament and the Old Testament. We just wanted to do good in our community, and share the word of Jesus.”
Founding families and others among the church's first congregants included people with Baptist, Brethren and Episcopalian backgrounds, Polley said.
“Pastor Mark came from a Brethren background,” Polley said. “He grew up in Southern California in the Long Beach area. He went to Dallas Theological Seminary in Texas. We were looking for a pastor for this church we wanted to start. One of the people here in Tuolumne County knew somebody at Dallas Seminary. He was a fellow student with Mark and recommended Pastor Mark to us.”
Levering initially came to Sonora prepared to do some group things with the founding families, “Bible type of stuff,” and Levering was in town for a three-day weekend. He made a number of presentations, where everyone got to know him and his family a little bit.
“We had no idea how good he was,” Polley said.
“We liked him. He's a humble man, a godly man, an intelligent man. We were impressed but he was even better than we expected. We got to listen to him and how he talked and he did good. He did great and exceeded our expectations.”
The very first service at the new Sierra Bible Church was held on the first Sunday in July 1973, in the old Grange Hall on Mono Way, which has since been removed to make room for the 108 bypass, Polley said.
Levering remained Sierra Bible's senior pastor until he retired on the 40th anniversary of the church and his ministry in June 2013. Pastor Steve Osborn assumed the role of senior pastor in August 2013.
Sierra Bible Church has had at least three other locations over the years, Osborn said Tuesday. Today the church is on 13 acres off Tuolumne Road, with a campus including the worship center, a commons area, a children's ministry building, two youth ministry buildings, and a nursery. Before the coronavirus pandemic, the church had 700 to 800 attendees on any given Sunday.
The church is financially healthy, has no debt, partners with numerous missions in nations around the world, including churchgoers in modern-day Russia, the former Soviet Union, and in recent months has served as ground zero for vaccinating thousands of Tuolumne County residents in the midst of the pandemic, which has contributed to the deaths of more than 560,000 Americans, including more than 59,000 Californians.
“Pastor Mark was, by Jesus' definition of greatness, a great man in the way he served his family, his church, our community, and our world through his heart for overseas missions,” Osborn said Tuesday. “It is my honor to call him a friend.”
One of Levering's daughters is a missionary in Thailand right now, Polley said. Bethany and Matt Mowad are being supported in part by Sierra Bible Church. His son, Nathan Levering, is on Sierra Bible Church's pastoral staff as community pastor, Osborn said.
“We're proud to call him our founding pastor,” Polley said of Mark Levering. “We're very proud of him and pleased with his work. I am blessed that he was my friend and pastor for 40 years and we worked together those 40 years. It was great. I don't know how else to put it. I feel God blessed what we did.”
Survivors include Mark Levering's wife of 53 years, Evalyn, their children and families: Bethany and Matt Mowad, and their kids Marin and Brooke; Nathan and Kathy, and their kids, Kaylin, Kirah, Kaden and Skyler; Brian and Ryan and their kids, Eli, Liana and Mikala.
A celebration of life service is being planned in June when Mark Levering's whole family can be together. To continue to enable a ministry he cared deeply about, a memorial fund will be set up through Sierra Bible Church for the ongoing work at Good News Bible Church in Ryazan, Russia. Please note “Good News Bible Church” on any donations made in his honor.
Sierra Bible Church is partnering with the nonprofit Love Tuolumne County for a county-wide service day coming up April 24. For information, visit www. lovetuolumnecounty.org/ communityservice online.
For more information about Sierra Bible Church and its missions, visit https://sierrabible.com online.