Lead Pastor | Hisashi “Tobi” Ishitobi
Pastor Tobi - tobi@riseoc.church
Tobi is our Lead Pastor for both English and Japanese languages groups. He was born in Tokyo, Japan but grew up in Huntington Beach and attended this church as a kid. After receiving his Bachelor’s from Vanguard University, he went back to Japan for work. While in Japan, he felt a calling to become a pastor. In 2007, he returned to the US and moved to Rochester, NY, where received his Masters of Divinity from Northeastern Seminary. From 2011, he has been serving as a pastor in the PCJC of the Free Methodist Church USA. In 2014, his family and several others planted RIZE Church in Huntington Beach and in 2018, the two churches merged together and in 2020, the church name became Rise OC. He is married to his beautiful wife Hosana and has a daughter Myliah, and two sons, Zio and Zent. He loves the Lakers and the Dodgers, hanging out with his family at the park, eating sausages of all kind, and having coffee with others to hear their life stories.
Associate Pastor | Jenny Switkes
Pastor Jenny - jenny@riseoc.church
Pastor Jenny is an associate pastor, mathematics professor, and missionary. She is ordained in the Free Methodist Church, having received the Master of Divinity degree from Azusa Pacific Seminary in 2014. Jenny is a Ph.D. mathematician and teaches at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where she has the joy of mentoring many first-generation college students from diverse backgrounds. Here at Rise OC, she loves serving as a volunteer pastor, with a focus on local outreach, global missions, strategic planning, and mobilization of people into leadership and service. Jenny takes joy in serving unseen leaders around the world, and has traveled to Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Myanmar, and Thailand. She has a heart for prison ministry and has taught and preached in prisons in the U.S. and Uganda. She leads a non-profit, Enhearten Unseen Leaders (www.enhearten.life), serving leaders who may be unseen by those around them but are seen by God. Jenny enjoys going hiking, including some epic hikes with her brothers.