Saddleback Church

Saddleback Church is a Baptist Evangelical multi-site megachurch, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, located in Lake Forest, California. It is the largest church in California, and one of the largest in the United States of America. The church has several campuses in California and around the world. Weekly church attendance was 23,494 people in 2020. The senior pastor is Andy Wood.

History

In 1979, Rick Warren recently graduated in theology, settled with his wife Kay in the Saddleback Valley area of Orange County, California. He began to probe the people in his neighborhood to find out what prevented them from coming to church. The answers that emerged were boredom, distance from everyday life, lack of welcome for visitors, insistence on money and inadequate programs for children. It is with these concerns that the church began in 1980, with a Bible study group, with six people, the pastor Rick Warren and his wife, in their condo. The first worship service took place in the gymnasium of a high school on Easter Day in 1980. In 1995, it opened its main building in Lake Forest, with a 3,500-seat auditorium.

In 2003, Saddleback Church, Kay and Rick Warren founded the P.E.A.C.E. Plan, a humanitarian development program for churches.

In November and December 2006, Saddleback Church played host to the second annual Global Summit on AIDS and the Church. The summit featured 60 speakers, including Senators Barack Obama and Sam Brownback.

In 2018, the church said it had baptized 50,000 people since its founding.

On August 16, 2008, Rick Warren arranged a meeting between Senators John McCain and Barack Obama at Saddleback called the Civil Forum on the Presidency. The format of the forum was structured such that Warren first asked Obama a series of questions; he then asked McCain very similar ones subsequently. It was broadcast live on national news networks and streamed online. Tickets were distributed to the public through a raffle with seats listing as high as $1,000 and the event was sold out.

According to a church census released in 2020, it claimed a weekly attendance of 23,494 people and 15 campuses in different cities. Lifeway research
Largest Churches List
outreachmagazine.com, US, retrieved January 16, 2021

In 2022, Andy Wood became senior pastor of the church.

In 2021, the church was audited for compliance by the Southern Baptist Convention, after ordaining three women pastors that year and thus acting contrary to the Convention's confession of faith which believes that the pastoral ministry is reserved for men.

In 2023, the church has 19 campuses on four continents including an online campus with over 500 staff altogether. Since the church’s inception, it has sent 14,867 people to do missionary work to 195 countries throughout the world.

Beliefs

The church has a Baptist confession of faith and is a member of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Programs

The church offers various programs, such as ''The Purpose Driven Church'' (PDC) curriculum and ''Celebrate Recovery'', an addiction recovery support group program. Kate Shellnutt
How Celebrate Recovery Helped Evangelicals Open Up About Addiction
christianitytoday.com, US, August 12, 2016

See also

* P.E.A.C.E. Plan
* Purpose Driven
* List of the largest evangelical churches
* List of the largest evangelical church auditoriums
* Worship service (evangelicalism)

References and notes

External links

Official website

{{Portal bar, Evangelical Christianity}
Baptist churches in California
Churches in Orange County, California
Southern Baptist Convention churches
Evangelical megachurches in the United States
Megachurches in California
Lake Forest, California
Christian organizations established in 1980
1980 establishments in California
Baptist multisite churches