Sunday Worship Time:10:00 AM

What is different about a Home Discipleship Church?
Why did you chose the Simple 4?
What in the world is a Hymn Sing?
What about fasting?
What am I suppose to do with my children during church?
Why should I make my children listen to a sermon they don't understand?
How am I suppose to concentrate when my children are with me?
What if I don't have any children? What do you have for me?
Do you believe in the Gifts of the Spirit?
How do you reach non-believers?
What denomination are you?



What is different about a Home Discipleship Church?

At first blush, nothing.  Our services are about the same as other churches, on the surface. We pray and sing to God.  We have communion each week. Below the surface, everything we do on Sunday comes from our deep seated belief that "church" doesn't begin and end on Sunday. We believe we should have worship services EVERYDAY in our homes. So we encourage everyone in our fellowship to have "church" in their homes. The "church" service can include all or some of the key elements that exist in the Sunday worship service. These include singing, reading and memorizing Scripture, and prayer.

As we practice home discipleship each day, and other people in their homes do the same, we develop a heart of worship to God in the whole family at the same time. Then when Sunday comes, we celebrate the work that God is doing in all our lives as we worship together. It isn't an obligation, but a celebration of the life we have through Christ and the unity we have in the Holy Spirit.

Most churches encourage people to connect with God for the most part as individuals.  This works well if you aren't married and don'thave children.  It does not work well if you are married and do have children.  There are too many marriages and families that are failing or faltering while the husband is doing his men's bible study and the wife is doing her bible study and the children are going to Sunday School and youth group.  They are breaking up and there is a reason that the concept of dividing and conquering has been so effective throughout history. 

But  what if we did something different?  What if instead of climbing on our individual ladders toward God, we all got on the same ladder so that when someone slips another can help them up?  The idea of a team is only as strong as its weakest member comes to mind. Yes, it is true that we should individually spend time with God each day. But we shouldn't stop there, as husbands we should be "washing" our wives in God's Word (Ephesians 5:25). As fathers we should be instructing our children in the Lord (Ephesians 6:4, Psalm 78:4). And the circle of connections just spreads from there: neighbors, church, brothers and sisters in the Lord, and the unsaved world.

This idea extends into our Sunday gathering.  Our San Juan Capistrano based church encourages participation throughout the service by not demanding perfection in our music or in our sermons or even how our service flows.  Instead we share God's grace with each other as we join together in worshiping him.  

So a 9 year old may lead us in a song on the piano, or a father may read the Scripture we will talk about for the sermon.  We work on a memory verse every week.  We make time to discuss the passage during the sermon,and look to build up leaders from within so that ultimately we will have many leaders in the church with a like-minded vision of transforming lives through what we call the "Simple 4": reading the Bible, praying, memorizing Scripture, and singing. We sing the Hymn of the Month in four parts so that we all contribute to the music, the entire church becomes the choir.   We believe that when we obey God in these things we are better able to obey Him in the other things He asks us to do.

We also understand that in San Juan Capistrano none of us are on an island.  We need people and we need community because God will often use people around us to change our hearts.  So we teach that hospitality is important and encourage everyone to invite others over for lunch or dinner. We encourage families to get together and do their daily discipleship together (after lunch or dinner is a great time to do this).   As my good friend Henry Reyenga says in his book, The Spontaneous Spread of Home-Discipleship Christianity:



Why did you chose the Simple 4?

The Simple 4 comes from our understanding of what God wants us to do all the time, if not every day.  They are the fundamental practices of the Christian Faith and have been followed by the Church, Christ's body, throughout it's history.

That being said, here are our scriptural reasons for why we believe God wants us to be doing the Simple 4:


1.Read the Bible


2. Pray


3. Memorize Scripture


4. Sing songs



What in the world is a Hymn Sing?

We thought you would never ask! Fortunately we've got just the thing to get you up to speed: Our Hymn Sing Video.


What about Fasting?

We believe that fasting was an important part of the disciples and believers of Christ lives during the New Testament times.  We also recognize that this discipline has been followed throughout history of the church and see no biblical or other reason not to  follow in the footsteps of those before us. We encourage believers to regularly humble themselves before God and fast as they seek His guidance and seek to do His will.

That being said, we don't include fasting in the Simple 4 (or Simple 5 if we included fasting) because we are focused on encouraging each other to practice disciplines that can occur every day and that every able bodied adult and child can do. It is neither practical nor probably healthy to fast every day and certainly those who are pregnant, nursing, or otherwise unable to fast for health reasons, like diabetics, should most likely avoid it unless God gives them a conviction; even then it should be done sparingly.


What am I suppose to do with my children during church? (Also known as: Why no Sunday School?)

The short answer is: have them worship with you and the rest of believers. The longer answer is:  Because the family sits together each day to do the Simple 4 (reading, praying memorizing Scripture, and singing), the children feel very comfortable sitting down with other believers on Sunday and doing the Simple 4 with others.  In fact,we find that most children enjoy staying with their parents. We provide coloring pages for the young ones and look forward to "snuggletime" with the little ones during the sermon.


Why should I make mychildren listen to a sermon they don't understand?

When you are reading and memorizing Scripture with your children every day, you have amazing opportunities to teach them, and so we find that Sunday is not the only time they will have a chance to learn what the Scriptures say.  There is also a lot we do that the children directly participate in: praying, singing, communion or receiving a blessing, and memorizing Scripture.  

All these activities happen throughout the service and so asking them to leave for 20-30 minutes during the sermon (yes, we try to keep it no longer than that) doesn't make sense to us.


How am I suppose to concentrate when my children are with me?

Much like our response to the above question, when you are reading and teaching the Bible every day to your children, you find that you learn an enormous amount about God and His desires for you and this world and so won't rely on the sermon for your sole source of information about God and your life.

You will be amazed at the questions your thoughtful children will come up with and it will be up to you to give them an answer.  Sometimes you won't know it and will have to ask for help or look it up yourself.  Other times you will know the answer but will be challenged to say it in a way that is understandable to a 5 year old.  In either case, it will be growing experience for both you and your children.

That being said, there are a couple direct answers to your question. First,we will soon be recording the sermons so you can listen to them whenever you have free time during the week.  Second, there are other wonderful speakers to whom we can point you to receive excellent biblical knowledge and insight.  Hopefully that will relieve some of the pressure on you to have to hear every word of the sermon.


What if I don't have any children?  What do you have for me?

If you don't have children, you will be in a Connection 1. We are all in Connection 1 as believers and then some of us are married so we become Connection 2 or have families so we are Connection 3. In essence we all do the Simple 4 and then some of us have other connections we may be responsible for encouraging, like spouses or children.

You will also have other people that will be connected within the church and some of them will be other singles and some will be married couples and some families.  It is important that you hang out with all of  the different connections because God will show you different things through each of them.  It is not good to be in a homogeneous situation, that is true for families and married couples and that is true for singles.

The bottom line is: you will still do the Simple 4 or get together with others daily to do the Simple 4 together.


Doyou believe in the Gifts of the Spirit?

Yes.  We believe that  the "Gifts of the Spirit" are still being given today.  We believe that Spiritual Gifts should be used to build up the Body of Christ. We believe that there are specific instructions for leaders of the church concerning how the gifts should be used during the church.

How do you reach non-believers?

There are few things in our lives as intimidating as talking to someone about accepting Christ.  There is often a fear of rejection or offense that can cause anyone to cringe at the thought of evangelizing. And yet Jesus told us to go make disciples:

There are many ways God uses to call people to Him.  There is no one way that God has called His people to Him in the past and it should not be expected that He will only  call people to Him by one way in the future.  God moves people's hearts as He chooses and so ultimately we rely on Him, not on our clever speech or virtuous behavior, to allow someone who is blind to their sin to see their need for Jesus.

That being said, below is a way that we have most frequently witnessed to people and we share it because we believe it is something everyone can do:

Our family gathers to worship God after dinner each night. If we have someone over we simply invite them to join us. We have had people who are in a different religion have dinner with us and then join us as we sang songs and read the bible and worked on our memory verses and prayed.  Afterwards, when the children ran off it gave our guests an opportunity to ask questions and find out more about why we faithfully do this every night.  It is a simple easy way of evangelizing without having to force a conversation to go toward a direction it wasn't naturally heading. In short anyone can invite someone over for dinner and then invite them to stay for the worship where you live by example in front of others; they see how your house is run and how you worship God.

So this is one way that we encourage people to reach out to non-believers:  invite someone over for dinner and have them join you in your family worship time, then talk about it after.

What denomination are you?

We are currently not part of any denomination. We are however intimately connected with the leadership of Christian Leaders Institute.