San Diego offers a delightful mix of soft breezes and blue skies that invites you to spend as much time as possible outside. The summer is warm without being oppressive, and the winters are cold without being frigid. 

The moderate weather has proven helpful for a growing church like Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Encinitas. Worshippers can pick from one of three morning services to attend, and when the sanctuary fills up, there is a large outdoor patio with overflow seating where attendees can participate in worship under the California sun and smell the air coming off the Pacific Ocean just three miles away.

I recently visited Redeemer Presbyterian Church, situated in the northern end of San Diego County. It is the fastest-growing PCA church on the West Coast. It added 108 new members last year. It is the only English-speaking congregation on the entire West Coast with weekly attendance over 1,000. It currently averages around 1,200 every Sunday. 

But Redeemer is rather new, only 13 years old, the result of two congregations merging. Harbor Church North County was a growing multi-ethnic church plant in need of a facility. North Coast Presbyterian Church was a majority-white congregation with its own facility and campus. The two churches were about 10 minutes apart. 

Paul Kim led Harbor Church, and North Coast was led by Doug Swagerty. The pastors had previously worked together and enjoyed a close relationship. The two congregations built trust with one another and eventually saw the wisdom of merging. They joined together in 2013 under the name Redeemer. Today, Kim serves as senior pastor of the growing congregation. Swagerty left around the time of the merger to accept a call to serve in New Mexico. 

I arrived for Redeemer’s 9:30 a.m. service on a recent Sunday. One of the first things that grabs your attention is the church’s hospitality. 

Every church considers itself a welcoming church, but Redeemer goes out of its way to make people feel welcome. From the time I got out of my car through the end of the service, multiple people sought me out to introduce themselves. It felt as though they have a membership vow requiring every member to approach newcomers and warmly welcome them. Kim, the senior pastor, was one of the first people to greet me. 

And if churches had rankings for amenities, the coffee lounge at Redeemer would certainly contend for the top spot. Greeters encourage you to grab a cup of coffee, a donut hole, or some fruit to enjoy. 

As you would expect, attendees are dressed in the trademark casual attire of Southern California. You won’t find any coats and ties in the crowd, but instead a wide variety of floral print shirts. As a former resident of California, this is standard across all denominations and liturgical styles, especially in seaside communities like Encinitas. 

You will also find a healthy mix of ages and races in the audience. There are college students, young couples, families, and retirees and a mix of Caucasian and Asian-American attendees. 

The worship service lasted a little over an hour with all the elements you’d expect in a Presbyterian service: call to worship, songs and hymns, offering, confession of sin, and the preaching of God’s Word. The service moved with efficiency since there are three of them each week. 

When Kim took the stage to preach, he informed the congregation that they were about to hear a glove compartment sermon. He wasn’t scheduled to preach on this particular Sunday. The assistant pastor who was scheduled got sick and was unable to preach. Kim said that every pastor keeps a sermon handy in their glove compartment for moments like this.

But if he hadn’t told us, we wouldn’t have known. His sermon was on the peace of Christ, which was providentially timed. The week prior, three people were killed outside a San Diego Islamic center. The alleged perpetrators, two teenagers, eventually took their own lives. In a city known for its serenity and safety, the shooting traumatized the community. 

Kim spent 30 minutes exploring the breadth and depth of Christ’s statement, “My peace I give to you” (John 14:27). He examined the context of Christ’s words and their original meaning. And he showed us the ongoing importance and relevance it holds for modern Christians. Kim also pointed out that the peace Christ offers is himself. In a culture riddled with fear and anxiety, Kim encourages us to settle for nothing less than Christ himself. 

Redeemer is blessed with something which few PCA churches in this part of the country enjoy: its own property. Many of the other churches in South Coast Presbytery meet in synagogues, schools, and strip malls. The cost of real estate makes it extremely difficult for churches to buy and develop their own facilities. As part of its growth, Redeemer launched another location with its own pastor in Scripps Ranch.

Even with its own campus and parking lot, cars have to park up and down El Camino Real, the street running in front of the church. As one service empties, the next wave of cars approaches. 

In a part of the country where church attendance is rare, Redeemer Encinitas is the exception rather than the norm when it comes to growth rates for PCA churches. And its story is a testimony to how church mergers prove you can often do more together than apart.