Elicia Horton, Women’s Ministries Assistant Director

I grew up in the church since I was a little girl and I was able to tell others about Jesus at young age, but deep in my heart I knew Jesus wasn’t truly Lord of my entire life. I knew just enough about God to keep my parents off my back and still had a love for the world that made it difficult for me to fully commit to God. I was in the thick of rebellion during my teenage years and my parents pulled me out of public school and put me in a Christian school to prayerfully keep me on track. I wish I could say that things changed immediately but they didn’t and I was headed toward getting kicked out of the school because of my constant waywardness. The school was based out of a church and a pastor that served there, who was also a sports coach that I highly respected, found me in the hallway one day after being kicked out of class for the millionth time. He boldly and truthfully confronted me and basically told me I was a fool for wasting my life away like I was. That talk/rebuke, including a series of other circumstances God used, finally grabbed my attention which led me to wholeheartedly give my life to God that summer at the age of 15. I had thought about the mission field a lot and would always pray for God to show me His direction, but little did I know back then that the Lord would call me to the mission field of North America and allow my best friend and future husband to serve alongside together in street evangelism, church-planting, discipleship, and pastoral and counseling ministry. After we were married, we both went on to pursue Bible college where we both graduated together with our Bachelor’s degrees and I was able to play basketball as a starting walk on for the Lady Warriors at Calvary University. In God’s grace, I took it a step further and was able to earn two Master’s Degrees years later, one in Religious Studies and the other in Organizational Development.

In 2019, the Lord had been impressing on our hearts that our assignment in Long Beach was coming to an end. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, but I knew my heart needed to be ready for wherever He was leading. Jenni Price had admittedly stalked me on social media and through a series of text message exchanges we finally met and shared hearts and vision of the future. I still wasn’t convinced the Lord was leading us to relocate to Riverside, but through a series of circumstances in 2019-2020 He began to make things very clear and in I accepted the position here in May 2020 and began work the next month.

A fun fact is that my husband and I officially met when he was 9 and I was 7 years old doing street evangelism together with our parents. We grew up in church and youth group and have done tons of ministry together including street evangelism, drama team, plays, sports ministry and rap music. ;)

My prayer for The Grove is that we will continue to march onward towards making Jesus known in all the places He has us in and that we would truly be tangible expressions of His love for the world and all people.

If you’d like to get in contact with me, please call or click below. 951-571-9090 ext. 2137