Our primary goal on Sunday morning is to provide people with an opportunity to encounter God through Bible-based teaching and compelling worship. We encourage those who attend either of our services to come early or stay later to engage in meaningful fellowship with one another as a church family.
FAQ
In 1981, three men with their families got together to start a Bible centered home church in Costa Mesa, California. As the church family grew, meetings took place in a few local elementary schools for a number of years before moving to our current facility on Red Hill Ave. in 1993.
Though many things have changed over the years, we are still committed to centering our lives and ministry around the Word of God as we seek to follow Him wherever and however he chooses to lead us.
Above all, we want to approach and teach the Bible with great respect, care and accuracy. Because of this, we greatly value expository preaching. While we may occasionally teach topically, as much as possible, we seek to let the truths of Scripture speak to us from within their original Biblical contexts. We are always seeking the meaning of a passage within its original context, and we are always exploring the significance of that passage for our lives today.
We believe that worship involves ‘bowing all of who we are before all of who God is.’ That is, worship is far more than what happens on Sunday mornings; it is a 24/7 lifestyle response to God’s grace in our lives. It involves surrendering to Him daily and gratefully offering up all that we are and all that we have to be used in service to Him.
Rather than choose between traditional hymns and contemporary worship songs, we use a blended worship that includes songs from all ages. Regardless of when a song was written, we try to find songs that are musically compelling and rich in substance. We believe there is great value in hymns with their rich theology and high view of God, as well as in contemporary choruses with their intimate and emotional focus. Our worship team plays a diverse style of acoustic music, incorporating guitar, piano, percussion, bass and other instruments.
We encourage our members to give financially, not out of compulsion, but out of a heart of gratitude, and we trust God to meet our financial needs as he sees fit. We believe that the way we think about and manage our financial resources is indicative of our devotion to God and His kingdom. Therefore, as part of our overall worship to Him, our financial generosity is an important response to God’s grace in our lives.
At Grace we don’t view success in ministry in ways that are common to the world. Our focus is to seek to be faithful to God’s calling for us and leave the results to Him. We don’t focus on how many programs we’re running or concern ourselves on growth, for growth’s sake. We place a high value on healthy leadership and work hard at cultivating a leadership team and culture that is faithful, transparent and sustainable. We spend a lot of time just being together, walking through the Scriptures together, and walking through the challenges of our lives together. We have found that this creates a healthy environment where people feel free to discover who God is and who He has created them to be.
Worship is a Lifestyle
Two core beliefs guide the way we do things at Grace: a belief in the priesthood of all believers and a belief that worship is a 24/7 response to God’s grace in our lives.
Worship is our lifestyle response to the way God has reached out to each of us in His grace. That response will include being more fully the people He’s created us to be and offering all of who we are for His service. We trust that God brings the unique people He wants to this church in order to shape our community according to His plans. We believe that every member is called to serve in a unique way and that the church body builds itself up in love and knowledge as each individual uses the unique gifts God has given them.
Because of all this, we try to allow ministries and programs to flow out of the unique relationships and gifts of our community. We gather together in various structured and unstructured settings to support each other and grow in spiritual maturity so that we might live our lives worthy of the calling to which God has called us to (Ephesians 4:1).
Worship Through Teaching
We greatly value expository preaching, seeking to let the truths of Scripture speak to us from within their original Biblical contexts. At the same time, we are always exploring how God is calling us to respond today through any given Biblical passage.
Worship Through Music
Our worship incorporates songs from all ages. We value the rich theology of hymns as well as the intimacy of contemporary choruses, and we simply aim for songs that are both musically compelling and rich in substance. Our worship team plays a diverse style of acoustic music, incorporating guitar, piano, percussion, bass and other instruments.