International Campuses Celebrate 3 Years

Playing a big role in filling God’s house are our international campuses that just celebrated their three-year anniversary! Saddleback campuses in Buenos Aires, Berlin, and Hong Kong all hosted events to celebrate the turning point.

On October 9, our Hong Kong campus had 724 people attend their third anniversary celebration, held at Munsang College. This was especially memorable since it was the last service to be held at this venue before moving into their new facility at The Sparkle.

The gathering was a chance to celebrate God’s faithfulness, express appreciation for three years at their facility, and enter the next phase of Saddleback Hong Kong with an attitude of daring faith.

“We are stepping into HK 2.0 of our Daring Faith journey,” says Campus Pastor, Stephen Lee. “To help meet the five faith goals, we are filling God’s house with new members, assisting the needy through our programs, interconnecting our growing fellowship cross-culture communication and fellowship, training our members, and taking the Good News to unreached people groups in mainland China and other Asian countries.”  

Saddleback Hong Kong is also providing Purpose Driven training to 5,000 ministers from other PD churches in Hong Kong, China and neighboring Asian countries. Since they launched on October 6, 2013, their efforts have led to a weekly attendance of 600 people, 207 baptisms, and 460 people completing CLASS 101-301. They’ve also distributed 25,000 PEACE Boxes, launched 60 small groups, and have over 250 people engaged in various ministries.

In light of these achievements, Saddleback Hong Kong’s anniversary celebration was the perfect way to enter a new season of growth. “We had a lot of members’ families and friends join the anniversary service,” says Pastor Stephen. “This can really help unbelievers experience the joy and love of Saddleback.”

Saddleback Berlin also celebrated their three-year anniversary on October 9 during a Sunday service at Kalkscheune, their weekend facility. Over 260 people turned up to celebrate all that God has done for Saddleback Berlin, making it the largest attendance to the campus since they launched three years ago (excluding the 2014 visit by Pastor Rick).

“We had many first time visitors,” says Berlin Campus Pastor, Dave Schnitter. “As a pastor, what excites me most is when members bring their friends to church because they want them to experience what they’ve experienced themselves! Our prayer is that we will continue to see these friends come to church over the next weeks and months.”

When reflecting on the past three years, Pastor Dave says one of the challenges has been that Berlin is a very transient city. As people move to and from the community, this impacts the church, but members are confident they can be a blessing to everyone who walks through the doors.

As Dave explains: “A strong church is not measured by its seating capacity, but by its sending capacity. It’s more like a river than a reservoir. Because of the people who are passing through Saddleback, we can indirectly make a difference all around the world.”

Represented at Saddleback Berlin are over 40 different nationalities, forming one larger “family”. They are not brought together by common hobbies, cultures, politics, languages, or anything else, but rather by their relationship with Jesus Christ.

In this new season of Saddleback Berlin, the church family is stepping up to help the lost. They are bringing hope and love to the masses migrating into their city. As desperate foreigners come to Berlin from a place of brokenness and destruction, members are embracing them as a great opportunity to serve as a church.

“We’re praying that God will bring hope and healing to these hurting people,” says Pastor Dave. “We want to make ourselves available because I have a feeling that God wants to use us to be the answer to these prayers. I am full of expectancy and anticipation for where God is leading us.”

For more information about our international campuses, visit saddleback.com/locations.