| Saddleback Church | |
| Country | United States |
|---|---|
| Denomination | Southern Baptist Convention |
| Website | saddleback.com |
| History | |
| Founder(s) | Rick Warren |
| Clergy | |
| Senior pastor(s) | Rick Warren |
Saddleback Church is an evangelical Christian megachurch located in Lake Forest, California, situated in southern Orange County, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. The church was founded in 1980 by pastor Rick Warren. Weekly church attendance averages nearly 20,000, currently making it the eighth-largest church in the United States (this ranking includes multi-site churches).[1]
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Saddleback's first public service was held on Easter Sunday, April 6, 1980, with two hundred people in attendance at the Laguna Hills High School Theater. Warren's church growth methods led to rapid growth and the church has used nearly eighty different facilities in its 30-year history.
Saddleback did not build its first permanent building until it had 10,000 weekly attenders. When the current Lake Forest campus was purchased in the early 1990s, a 2,300-seat plastic tent was used for worship services for several years, with four services each weekend. In 1995, the current Worship Center was completed with a seating capacity of 3,500. The Children's Ministry Center (housing the "Saddleback Kids" ministry) and staff office building were completed over the next few years. In 2008, former Pastor of Life Development, Doug Fields, saw his dream of over 15 years come to fruition with the completion of the Refinery, Saddleback's first permanent student ministry facility. Costing $20 million, the state-of-the-art facility is considered the premier student ministry facility in the world. The Refinery houses Saddleback's middle school ministry (Wildside), high school ministry (HSM), college ministry (Crave), and young adults ministry, (Fuel). Since moving into the Refinery, all the student ministries have seen tremendous growth, with more than 2,500 young people attending services in the facility each week. The Refinery was built using the resources and voluntary giving raised through the "Extending the Vision" campaign.[2][3]
The Purpose Driven Church (PDC) curriculum[4] and Celebrate Recovery program[5] were founded at Saddleback Church. Saddleback currently has 9 regional campuses (not including the Lake Forest campus): San Clemente, Irvine, Corona, Orange, Huntington Beach, Rancho Capistrano, Anaheim (Spanish), Anaheim and Laguna Woods. Several more campuses are planned in the next few years. In addition, Saddleback is "virtually" attended by those around the country who listen to services on the live webcast.[6]
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.
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 Sen. Obama a series of questions; he then asked Sen. McCain very similar ones subsequently. Held inside Saddleback's Worship Center, the event is notable as the first time the two Presidential candidates met during the campaign. 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.[7][8]