The Response Church exists to glorify God by creating gospel-centered families of missionary servants in the city of San Diego and the world. We began gathering as a local church in April of 2014, which means our church is now officially three years old. Many of you may be surprised to hear that San Diego is in the top thirty most “Post-Christian” cities in the United States. The Response Church wants to push back against this darkness and be agents of God’s light in this city. We don’t simply consider San Diego to be our home, but also our mission. We want to be used by God to help build a better city for His glory and the good of those He is saving.
The Response Church is located in the Point Loma / Ocean Beach community of San Diego proper. Point Loma has the highest divorce rate of all the San Diego communities, and its largest demographic is adult singles. In other words, our target area has a tragically low view of marriage. However, The Response Church has been used by God to cultivate and officiate over a dozen Christ-centered marriages in just the last couple of years. Additionally, one of our goals is to not simply rely on families to model the gospel and carry the weight of ministry but to empower young single Christians by giving them real opportunities to exercise their God-given gifts in the local church, and God has gifted us with several godly single leaders.
We have also recently enjoyed an explosion of growth through young families and children. The Response Church went from having zero children to now averaging 15 children and 120 adults at our weekly Sunday services. We also had the immense privilege of baptizing 23 adults in 2016!
The Response Church currently has three elders, six deacons, and 85 covenant-members, working together in ministries through which we see great fruit. Our robust social media presence allows us to weekly engage our community with the gospel through sermon clips, blogs, and other Christ-centered content. Our efforts to become a hub for church planting in our city is another avenue of ministry where we’ve seen God’s blessing. Our goal is not simply to train and equip leaders for our church, but for future church plants that we hope to send out. One of the ways that we are seeking to accomplish this goal is through our Eldership Training Track, where we are training six men to become elders within the next two years. Two of these men have already been put forward as elder candidates to be officially installed as elders in July.
We are grateful for the faithful support of Acts 29 US West, both through financial generosity and prayer, and ask for you to join us even now in praying that God would use our church to accomplish the goals that he has placed in our hearts. Pray for the growth of our elder team, and that the Lord would enable us to plant another church in our city. We also believe the Lord has given us a desire to see at least 100 people baptized over the next four years, and know that this will only be accomplished through prayer and dependence on the Lord.
Each year, Acts 29 US West has the joy of funding a number of church plants. The Response Church is one of 17 church plants we’re funding in 2017. You can read about more of these church plants on our blog!
