Three Campuses to Launch Soon

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. We are well on our way to meeting this goal with plans for new campuses in California. Among them is our new Saddleback campus in San Diego, slated to launch at Canyon Crest Academy on October 23.

Over the past few months, we’ve seen San Diego residents come out to show their support during our pre-launch gatherings and our "Meet the Pastor" dinner on August 14.

Under the direction of Kyung Lee, Pastor of New Campus Launches, our first informational meeting took place on June 20 at the Hilton Garden Inn in Del Mar, with over 100 people in attendance. It was an amazing night filled with food, fellowship, worship, and an encouraging word from Phil Shinners, Pastor of Saddleback San Clemente. Most importantly, there was exciting news about the new campus launch.

After searching over 100 facilities, God opened doors to Canyon Crest Academy in Carmel Valley that meets all our campus criteria! The full-service campus includes an auditorium with enough space for 450 people. Our vision is to serve the community by eventually growing large enough to host two weekend services. On August 30, the contract to Canyon Crest Academy was signed by both parties, making the partnership official, as Saddleback San Diego's new campus home! 

To date, over 200 people have already made commitments to be part of the new campus in San Diego. Plans are already coming together to organize small groups and train ministry leaders for Saddleback Kids, Tech Arts, Worship, Welcome Team, and more.

Making the launch official was Pastor Rick who publicly confirmed the San Diego campus during weekend service. Those who made the commitment to join the new campus will begin building community and deeper commitments in the next few months.

According to Pastor Kyung Lee, “We are excited about our campus pastor to begin leading our San Diego people. I’m already giving thanks for what God is doing, and for what he will continue to do through Saddleback San Diego.”

As plans for the San Diego launch begin to unfold, we’re gearing up for other campuses to help build God’s kingdom! Kicking off 2017 will be the grand opening of our Saddleback Irvine Great Park campus. With over 25,000 new homes being built in the area, this is the ideal location to reach yet another community for Christ.

We’re also excited to announce the fall launch of our Saddleback Español campus. Located at our Lake Forest property, the Spanish-speaking campus will be led by Pastor Fernando Lammoglia and his wife Celsa, a gifted vocalist and worship leader. They both have cross-cultural ministry experience in the U.S. and Venezuela, and previously served as part of the pastoral staff at Church on Rush Creek in Arlington, Texas. 

In addition to these new campuses, there are also tentative plans to launch a Saddleback microsite in the Bay Area of Northern California.

“For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been visiting some of our campuses,” says Pastor Rick. “Saddleback Church has been growing for 36 years, now with 16 locations spread out in different locations. But we’re not done. Our goal for the next six months in 2016 is to grow by six percent. I believe this is a very doable goal. We must simply ask ourselves, ‘How do we get to the next phase and do more of what is producing growth?’”

With an average attendance of 25,238 across all of our campuses, our goal is to reach 26,758 by 2017. With such growth comes a need for volunteers who are willing to be part of a seed group and launch team. As proven by Saddleback’s history, there was a group of people 35 years ago, who wanted to be part of the legacy to fill God’s house.

“Those people can look back and see that they were part of something that God had in hand in,” says Ron Keck, Pastor of International and Regional Campuses. “I want a new generation to be challenged by history and legacy. This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor and leave our mark. We only get one shot to say ‘I was there at the beginning.’”

To be part of the legacy, contact Pastor of New Campus Launches, kyungl@saddleback.com.