Success Story

Something to share:

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Rick and Kay Warren, age twenty-five, moved to Orange County from Texas in January 1980 to begin a new church. Arriving with a four month old baby late one Friday afternoon in a U-hall truck, they stopped at the first real estate office they found. Warren introduced himself to the only realtor in the office: "My name is Rick, I'm here to start a church, and I need a place to live … but I don't have any money!" Realtor Don Dale laughed and said, "Well, let's see what we can do." Within two hours, the Warrens had rented a condo with nothing down and getting the first month's rent free. Warren asked Dale if he attended any church He said "No," so Warren replied, "Great! You're my first member!" The two families began Saddleback church meeting in that condo. The small group quickly grew to fifteen people.

To announce the first public service on Easter, 1980, Warren wrote an open letter to the community. The letter announced, "A new church for people who've given up on church." The small group of fifteen hand addressed and hand stamped 15,000 invitations to Easter. Ten days later, 205 strangers showed up at the first service at Laguna Hills High School. A church was born.

At the first service, Warren announced his forty year commitment to leading the new congregation and laid out a vision for the future.

Over the next fifteen years, the church kept outgrowing rented facilities, requiring that they use 67 different locations to accommodate the growth! Members joked, "This is the church you get to attend IF you can figure out where we are meeting this week!" The churched used four different high schools, numerous elementary schools, theaters, restaurants office buildings, recreation and community centers, parks, and stadiums, eventually holding four weekend services in a 2,300 seat high-tech tent. Saddleback is the only American church to grow to over 10,000 in attendance without owning a building. "We wanted to make the point that a church is people, not a building," explained Warren, "so we put off building until we had no other choice."

Today, as Saddleback Church begins its Decade of Destiny, Saddleback holds weekend services in many cities, and over 4,000 small groups meet weekly in every city of Southern California. Try one this week!

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from this website. :)