Vision City Church

Hey, guys. Does anyone on TI go to Vision City Church? I have some questions.

Orchard Hills School facility is rented by Vision City Church on Sundays. The church is in the process of moving to their own building. The location is off Bake Pkwy, in Irvine, between Jeronimo and Muirlands. The move is happening in stages.

I just dropped in last night for their midweek service. I'm trying to get an idea whether the current church body is planning to move over there or not. I talked directly to the staff but I left feeling confused. For example, I thought the small groups would already be more established since the church has been running for 9 years. When I asked about particular groups, it seemed like there was talk of starting stuff. But I guess I thought it was already started, know what I mean?... it's not a new church, just a new location. This lead me to wonder if maybe they're re-starting from scratch. Some people may not like the extra drive, from one side of Irvine, to the other. I understand that with a new space, things like dates and times may change. But I'm looking at if they have enough people to form groups. On Thursday, if I had to guess, I would say there were about 60'ish people there. I did meet some people who told me they live in Irvine.

If you currently attend VCC, aka Vision Calvary Chapel, aka Vision City Church, then please let me know what your plans are and the intentions of the people you know there at Orchard Hills. Are you following them to Bake? I already have a home church that I drive 35 minutes to every week but I am considering possibly switching to VCC when they move Sunday services over from Orchard Hills to the new building on Bake.

We used to go there when we lived in the OC. The pastor came from Calvary Chapel during the Chuck Smith era and so he drew people from all over that had been going to CCCM and his Monday Nights Live services. So............ lots of areas of the county. It's hard to maintain that group if you move locations and some have moved out of the area. Covid lost some people. As far as the location, it was hard to set up and tear down everything every single week (getting commitments from people to do that week in and week out).

Small groups was a good idea but the leaders are scattered thru the county and it's once again a big commitment to host that every week while they are in session especially when you lose some attendees from your local area (moving away, other commitments with kids growing etc).

I can't really answer you on whether they are starting from scratch but I have to believe that having a permanent location where they don't have to set up every single week will be a positive.

I would guess they will lose some and gain others.

The pastor's philosophy is very similar to Chuck Smith if you remember him.

Pastor Garrid is honest and open, we appreciated his style and we’re encouraged by the church when we attended a few times. In the end, the teaching sometimes took a little long to reach the biblical point as some of the introductions to the messages were longer. That was our first reason for choosing to look elsewhere followed by extremely uncomfortable chairs, which is the challenge of a temporary school gym location. Our backs couldn’t handle the seats, which is a physical limitation others may not have.

We would consider attending this church in the future, but for now also drive to a church out of the area. The Bake location compared to the OH location is not much of a difference to us. Small groups are so important; 90 minutes of fellowship and a short lesson to build community, but capped at 10-12 people. The other ministries seemed to partner with another church in Corona.

We hope they improve communication via a newsletter to make information more available.

Thanks for the replies.

R2D: Yeah, very familiar with Chuck Smith. Loved him.

Kangen.Irvine: Good news, in case you drop by --The chair situation has been fixed. The new building has nice cushioned chairs. The meeting spot is currently upstairs on Thursday nights. If you have any mobility issues, take the elevator. Enter the lobby and look to the left of the stairs.

Garid just started the book of Revelation on Thursdays. If you like eschatology, that's something to consider. Very few churches teach the full Bible, Genesis to Revelation. I just did a 6-month study of Revelation with a different ministry but will likely go ahead and do this again to get acquainted with everyone. Plus, we can be taught the same thing five times by five different guys and learn something new each time. It bears repeating.

They will take breaks for guest speakers. So far, they've had Jack Hibbs, Raul Ries and Mike MacIntosh. That's been nice.