Mission:

To help people live at the highest levels of life by building, connecting, demonstrating, and reaching out!

About:

We are a non-denominational Christian Church located in Vista, with branches in San Diego, Chula Vista, Tijuana, Oshkosh, Washington, D.C., Okinawa, and Heredia. We're here to help you live at the highest levels of life!

History:

Founded by Stephen Randall Johnson on May 5, 1985, Life Christian Church began as a Bible study with 7 people. Composed mostly of young and college age students, the group first met in a recreation room of a retirement age mobile home park. Benefiting from the generosity of the eccentric owner of the park, Pastor Stephen was offered a single wide mobile home to rent and the use of the recreation center in the first few months. Then a single himself, Pastor Stephen started the church at the age of 29 while working toward finishing his bachelors degree in Theology at Berean Bible College in San Diego. In those early years, he received no salary and fit work in between commitments to his little church and his full time schedule at Bible College. Sunday’s would be held in an empty bar of a local motel. The worship team would set up their instruments and pulpit on the parquet dance floor. Cigarette butts had to be picked up and half empty glasses of alcohol cleared off tables before they could have the children’s Sunday school.

From there, the church moved to the recreation building of Washington Park located in the heart of Escondido all the while hoping and looking for a place they could call home.

It was at this point in the first couple of months of 1987 that Pastor Stephen made a bold and risky decision. Some space was available in a semi-professional, industrial park in Escondido, but the city had not opened it up for church use. Life Christian Church (then known as His Church), like David versus Goliath moved in, against impossible odds and took on the City of Escondido’s building department to petition the city council for a conditional use permit that would allow them to stay. Miraculously, the city agreed and equally as miraculous, the money came in to pay the rent for the huge unfinished warehouse building as the church began to grow. The excitement was contagious and all the young people began bringing their friends, co-workers and family members. The building went from a cold and dark warehouse to a finished building as the singles and young families zealously took on the construction of the church. People from all walks of life began to attend and the congregation became a conglomeration of many different races, genders , and ages.