GROW
In last week’s blog, I shared the word God gave me for this year: GROW. Last year, my word was GO. When God gave me that word, I knew immediately it was time to get things moving in our church. Looking back, 2025 truly became a year of laying foundations. It was a productive year—one that prepared us for growth.
One of the major steps we took was establishing a deacon board. Around the same time, CPJMA School finally completed their nearly three-year renovation. For a long season, it felt like we were playing musical rooms across campus. We survived—but it was a challenging season for Pacific Life Church. The good news? The school looks amazing.
Because CPJMA has a strong emphasis on music, they upgraded the auditorium’s sound system, which has been a huge blessing for our worship team. The schoolyard now includes two playgrounds, opening up new possibilities for our children’s ministry. Many other improvements were made as well, including a fantastic new parking lot behind the school—and rumor has it that new chairs are coming soon.
Back in 2020, our church joined a church-planting organization called RIZE, and we also became part of the PCJC conference—short for Pacific Coast Japanese Conference. The story behind PCJC is remarkable. A man from Japan, with a deep heart for church planting, chose to use his resources to help establish churches along the West Coast, from Washington to Southern California.
Both RIZE and PCJC are part of the Free Methodist denomination. Today, there are 28 PCJC churches on the West Coast, including ours. Last year, Pacific Life Church went through an extensive application process to receive funding to help us relaunch the church.
You might be wondering, what does “relaunch” mean? In many ways, it’s like starting fresh—with clarity and intentionality. To qualify for the $20,000 we requested, we walked through a rigorous evaluation process. A group of church leaders spent time prayerfully reviewing our values, vision, mission, culture, ministries, and strategies for reaching our community. We even conducted a demographic study of Pacific Beach.
That process forced us to revisit and pray through things we hadn’t thoughtfully considered since the early days of planting the church—and it was incredibly healthy.
The funding we receive from RIZE will help us with things like:
Creating new signage so people can find us
Sending bulk mail to invite our community to our Easter grand opening
Developing marketing materials
Investing in children’s ministry
Supporting our worship team
Expanding outreach to our military community
Launching a youth ministry
This isn’t a comprehensive list, but it gives you a picture of how we’re positioning our church to grow.
If we’re going to grow, we’ll need your help. We’ve never been a spectator church. Our heart has always been to invite every person who calls Pacific Life Church home to get involved. There are many ways to do that—by investing your time, your talent, and your financial resources. At the bottom of this email, you’ll find a list of practical ways you can partner with us.
The healthiest churches cultivate a culture of invitation. My prayer is that you’ll invite someone to church this year. There is so much to look forward to in 2026, and I’m excited about what God is doing among us.
I’m praying for you, and I hope you’re praying for our church. Together, we can do great things for the Kingdom of God.
Stay close to Jesus,
Steve