A Church In Mira Mesa
We are a church in Mira Mesa. Why serve Mira Mesa? Aren’t there a lot of churches in Mira Mesa already? Why form a church there?
We’re primarily a church built around people, not necessarily a location or a demographic. The main reason why our church is in Mira Mesa is because the group that began the church lives largely in Mira Mesa. Many of own homes here, live here, shop and even work in Mira Mesa. We’ve been here for decades. I personally grew up in the surrounding area of Penasquitos and Poway and moved to Mira Mesa as a young adult and have lived in Mira Mesa most of my adult life. So we live in Mira Mesa, we know it well and we love it here.
Not everyone loves Mira Mesa. People hate its potholes, its lack of amenities, its overabundance of chicken restaurants, its unbearable east-west traffic, and it’s not the nicest newest neighborhood. But at the same time it’s a neighborhood that has a lot of great Asian food, fairly central in San Diego, close enough to the beach, friendly neighbors and a down to earth attitude. It has a mix of the military presence from MCAS Miramar, the breweries along Miramar Blvd, the students in nearby La Jolla, the tech and bio companies of Sorrento Valley, plus beautiful PQ preserve right to the north. It’s not the best neighborhood in the world, but it’s home.
We as a church want to live life together as much as possible. We don’t want to have to drive 30 mins every time we want to see each other. We want to be able to get to know businesses, parks and schools, while having a diversity of ethnicities and cultures right around us. Mira Mesa gives us that. It is one of the most Asian neighborhoods in San Diego, but it’s not just Asian. The schools are good but people aren’t moving here just for the schools. There are plenty of young people growing up here. There are many older folks who have lived here all their lives and witnessed all the changes.
So we want to be a church that is involved in the neighborhood. We want to be a church that contributes to the community, the schools, the parks. We want to actually live here and be here and thrive here. We’re not here because we think Mira Mesa needs to change. We believe God called us here because we live here and we love it here. We already know the area and have a heart for it. WE know a lot of people, our neighbors, friends, local businesses and we want to see these people thrive. The best way to heal and thrive is through the gospel of Jesus living itself out through a local church. We want to be that local church.
But aren’t there already a lot of great churches in Mira Mesa?
While there are a lot of churches in Mira Mesa, how many people do you know actually attend a church in Mira Mesa? Most people don’t know of many of the churches in Mira Mesa. Aside from Good Shepherd, a very large Roman Catholic church, most people don’t even know the churches in Mira Mesa. That’s not to say that they’re doing a bad job. That’s just to say we need more church presence in Mira Mesa in general. We believe that churches should remain fairly small in order to maintain close relationships and a tight knit community. If churches are to remain small, we need more of them. Mira Mesa is the largest neighborhood in SD with over 70,000 residents, but it certainly does not have the most churches nor does it have the most church attendance. And with the new neighborhoods in 3Roots and another on it’s way on the eastern side of Carroll Canyon Rd called “Stone Creek”. Thousands of new people will be moving into the Mira Mesa area soon. We meet at Jonas Salk Elementary School which is the elementary school that serve the 3Roots new community development. Mira Mesa will need new churches to preach the gospel, bring communities of love, joy and peace to the neighborhood. In fact, our church alone isn’t good enough. There will need to be dozens of new churches planted over the next few years in just the Mira Mesa community alone. We’re glad to be one of those churches.