Our Story
Our story begins in the summer of 2003 when a small group of believers started meeting at the beach on Sunday nights in Carlsbad near lifeguard Tower 21. Our first meeting was the result of months of prayer and years of God tugging on the hearts of several individuals to step out in faith and follow His leading.
We met with great expectation, trusting that God was going to do something new and fresh in our lives and the lives we touched as we followed Him in starting this new church. We envisioned a church without walls; a church that would welcome anyone who was seeking to know and experience God. But more than that, we envisioned a group of people who would take the good news of God’s love through Jesus Christ beyond the traditional walls of the established church and share this message with our community in a relevant way.
That first summer at the beach we studied the book of Acts and were impressed by the early church’s emphasis on prayer, community and the faithful teaching of salvation through Jesus Christ alone.
As the summer faded into fall, the weather became cooler and the days grew shorter, we watched as God provided a new location for us to meet. It was an old non-operating greenhouse in Carlsbad where roses were once grown. It was very rustic and needed quite a bit of makeover in order to use, but it was also us: authentic and organic.
Symbolically The Greenhouse was a great place to grow and incubate our new church. We watched God’s hand at work as he amazingly answered our prayers and brought the right people to us at the right time, adding to our number consistently.
In April of 2003 we were given the opportunity to host the Easter Sunrise service at the famous Carlsbad Flower Fields. It was an incredible morning and a great outreach to the community and had a great turnout. At this point we knew we had outgrown The Greenhouse and it was time for us to move again. We started meeting the auditorium of the Aviara Oaks Elementary School in Carlsbad and continue to meet there now.
We have named our new church “The Fields” because Jesus once told his followers, “Open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.” (John 4:35) At The Fields our desire is to see people grow into passionate followers of Jesus Christ. We are anticipating that God will help our church continue to grow in two ways. First, we hope to be used by God to bring in a harvest of those who do not yet know Jesus and see them grow to maturity in Christ. Secondly, we have a team approach to ministry. We are praying that God will bring to The Fields workers who have a heart for the harvest and most importantly, a heart for the Lord of the harvest. Jesus told his followers, “Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
That’s our story. We have seen some amazing answers to our prayers. We have seen our faith in God grow. We believe God is on the move and are excited to be a part of that!