More Campuses Launching

As part of our Daring Faith campaign, we want to grow our church family by filling God’s house with 40,000 worshipers at our weekend services by the year 2020. Several key components of our “F” vision are to launch new campuses, strengthen all our existing campuses, strategically relocate some of our campuses, and find permanent buildings as church homes.

Prior to Daring Faith, Saddleback had 13 campuses in its family. We witnessed growth in all of our locations, and followed God’s lead to add more campuses as part of our three-year Daring Faith campaign. As a result of the faith, generosity, and contribution of our Saddleback members, we’ve launched four new Daring Faith campuses in the past 18 months—bringing us to a total of 17 campuses!

Kicking off our new locations was Saddleback Irvine North—our first Daring Faith campus and the first campus launched out of another campus! On Easter 2015, we had 211 members from our Irvine South campus commit to live missionally and plant this new campus. Today, Saddleback Irvine North is reaching over 800 people each week. Their numbers keep growing as they reach the community with events like Blocktober that brought in 3,500 to their campus alone!

Last Christmas, Saddleback South Bay was launched with members from our other neighboring campuses including Saddleback Newport Mesa, Saddleback Anaheim, and Saddleback LA.

Saddleback Aliso Viejo was birthed out of Saddleback Rancho Capistrano, with a dream to have a local campus to reach Aliso Viejo and its surrounding communities.

Most recently, we launched Saddleback San Diego with 1,591 people at the Grand Opening. As our fourth Daring Faith campus, Saddleback San Diego was seeded by a small group from Saddleback San Clemente. Together, they committed to this new campus that has drawn people from all over San Diego County.

In addition to launching new campuses, many of our existing campuses have seen amazing growth by moving their facilities. Among them is Saddleback Los Angeles that moved from the Palladium in Hollywood to Studio City, growing from an average of 500 people each weekend to now over 750 in just four months.

Saddleback Anaheim relocated from the City National Grove to a new building across the street, opening up thousands of additional seats and growing from 1,400 people to more than 2,200 each weekend.

Saddleback Irvine South’s relocation to their new facility was funded in part by the generous giving to Daring Faith. After two years of searching for a home campus, God provided a building that will give them the opportunity to keep reaching Irvine like never before.

Our international campuses in Hong Kong, Manila, Buenos Aires, and Berlin, are also making huge strides to reach our goal of 40,000 worshipers. After three years, our international campuses are growing by more than 35 percent.

Saddleback Buenos Aires is preparing to launch a fifth service. Meanwhile Saddleback Hong Kong’s efforts have led to a weekly attendance of 600 people, 207 baptisms, and 460 people completing CLASS, 60 small groups, and 250 people engaged in ministries. Saddleback Hong Kong will also open their new building on December 11. This new facility will enable them to reach to up to 4,000 people and will provide a Purpose Driven and Leadership Training Center to equip leaders from East and Southeast Asia.

To help beautify God’s house and reach more people, Saddleback Anaheim, Irvine South, and San Clemente broke ground on campus renovations including upgrades to their Worship Centers, patio areas, and office space.

When we reflect on this past Easter, we can give thanks for the 72,000 people that heard the Good News at all of our regional, international, and online campuses. This led to 1,845 new believers making a commitment to follow Christ.

A significant moment in the 36-year history of Saddleback happened this October, when Pastor Rick baptized our 45,000th believer. Building on this momentum, our teams are diligently working towards launching the 10 remaining Daring Faith campuses.

Next in line is Irvine Great Park, a growing area in Orange County where 16,000 new homes are currently being built. As our third Saddleback campus in Irvine, this facility will offer a church home to thousands of residents. A campus pastor is scheduled to be announced before the end of the year, with a proposed target launch date sometime in late February.

We’re also excited with the scheduled launch of Saddleback Espanol happening in spring 2017. Orange County is home to more than 1 million Hispanics, and Saddleback Espanol will reach out to this community with the love of Jesus.

Espanol campus pastor, Fernando Lammoglia, is currently working on forming a staff and finalizing logistics for this new campus. Read our interview with Pastor Fernando HERE.

Our campus launch team isalso looking at the growing areas of Brea and Yorba Linda to possibly launch a new campus there sponsored by Saddleback Anaheim. Other areas they’re currently assessing are the San Francisco Bay Area, Temecula, and Riverside. A great deal of research and planning goes into selecting a location, assuring that the area has room to grow and to meet the needs of our members.

According to Kyung Lee, Pastor of Campus Launches, “In our search for a new area, we look for a growing community, where there isn’t a Saddleback presence, and where we can reach people for Christ. Generally this is a region with new housing development, and a booming area near schools. It also helps if there is an existing Saddleback campus nearby that can help launch the new campus. But it always comes down to location and God’s will.”

From launching campuses to baptizing believers, the scale of these big-step accomplishments is greater than we ever imagined. Tens of thousands of lives have been changed by God and his church. We cannot wait to see even more lives impacted as Saddleback continues to reach out in love and Daring Faith.

To become part of the mission to fill God’s house, click HERE to give to Daring Faith!