Going Forth and Multiplying

When Lyle Castellaw was ready to start a church amid the growing new communities in south Orange County, he first sought help through prayer.

Then he hired a consultant to be sure that his faith in the region and its changing demographics was on target. With thousands of new homes sprouting in South County, it’s no wonder that religious institutions in the area are expanding or eyeing upscale communities such as Newport Coast, Bonita Canyon, Irvine, Aliso Viejo, Talega and Ladera Ranch for new houses of worship. And many are using the modern tools of market research to do it.

“Denominations tend to monitor the growing edges of population areas and look for opportunities to start new churches wherever growth is occurring,” said Mike Regele, president of Percept, a Costa Mesa consulting firm that advises churches nationwide and includes Castellaw’s Rock Hills Church in Mission Viejo among its clients.

Lead pastor Castellaw’s nondenominational approach represents a departure from the traditional way that churches have reached out to expanding communities, Regele said.

“The old model would have been for them to try to locate in areas where there’s a high possibility of finding Presbyterians or Methodists, for example,” he said. “But there’s been enough of a shift in what’s going on in North America today, where denomination loyalties are next to zero, that churches can go in and develop relationships with people who have no affiliation or no strong ties to a denomination.”

The building boom is playing itself out in congregations small and large throughout the developing parts of Orange County. A shady, once isolated ribbon of Bonita Canyon Drive in Irvine is a thriving example.

Nestled between the land that will become Irvine’s Turtle Ridge community and the new developments of Bonita Canyon and Newport Coast, the road has become a veritable religion row. The San Joaquin Hills toll road bisects it, and about 5,000 homes may be built within a five-mile radius of that intersection over the next decade.

Tarbut v’Torah, the 3-year-old Jewish day school at Culver and Bonita Canyon drives, is negotiating to buy adjoining land for expansion. And next door, Mariner’s Church, which draws about 5,000 worshipers every Sunday, is eyeing an additional 16 acres.

Like other religious organizations that are taking a deliberate approach, local Mormon officials planning a church and regional headquarters on Bonita Canyon Drive did extensive demographic research to convince the Mormon Church that the location was worthy of funding, said Joe Bentley, the church’s director of public affairs for Orange County. The property was bought in 1992, and the building opened two years ago.

Even in the highly planned world of the Irvine Co., Bonita Canyon Drive’s status as a burgeoning spiritual center has come as a bit of a surprise. “It just sort of happened,” said Irvine Co. Vice Chairman Ray Watson, the company’s first planner and former CEO.

Under the original Irvine city plans, churches were allotted two to three acres within neighborhoods.

Growing Up With South County

The religious boom on Bonita Canyon Drive “grew out of the fact that changes have occurred in religious life too,” Watson said. “Now you have some very large congregations that would be less appropriate inside a village.”

The religious building boom is by no means limited to Bonita Canyon Drive.

Irvine’s Bethel Korean Church, for example, is in the midst of an expansion of its facility at Harvard Avenue and University Drive, executive pastor David Won said. Having already taken over two adjacent buildings, the 23-year-old church is in the middle of a 54,000-square-foot expansion that will add classrooms and a gymnasium.

Temple Bat Yahm, a Reform Jewish congregation in Newport Beach, will break ground May 21 for a 23,000-square-foot expansion that will add a second sanctuary, classrooms, a free-standing library, an outdoor amphitheater and a ritual bath.

“We foresee at this time a really expanding Jewish population in the Newport and Irvine area and beyond,” said Rabbi Mark Miller. “Especially with the toll road, and with so many Jewish people moving into the area . . . we want to be poised to meet the needs of our congregation and to welcome the people that are new to the area.”

Rather than turn to an outside consultant, Temple Bat Yahm tapped experts within its ranks--developer Richard Packard of the Landmark Companies and Orange County Report publisher Martin Brower--for a strategic plan.

“The current facility was designed for 400 families, and we’re currently at about 670,” Packard said. “The religious school and preschool are bursting at the seams.”

And after years of sharing space with a church on Alton Parkway in Irvine, the county’s only Reconstructionist Jewish congregation, University Synagogue, is also nearing a decision on a permanent location of its own.

Instead of reacting to the region’s growth, Castellaw of Rock Hills Church made a conscious decision to seek it out. His congregation, which gathers each Sunday in rented space at Mission Viejo High School, is an outgrowth of Mariner’s Church in Irvine.

Having lived in Mission Viejo for five years, he believed the area lacked a church that could draw the young people who were moving into the area in droves.

“New churches do a better job of holding people that are new themselves,” Castellaw said. “It’s an easier church for them to get their arms around because everybody is new.”

With the new Ladera Ranch community going up, Castellaw believed he had found an ideal location. “I spent a lot of time walking over the hills and just praying over that land,” Castellaw said. He turned to Regele for confirmation.

Using the intersection of Crown Valley Parkway and Interstate 5 as an epicenter, Regele used his national survey database to provide the fledgling church with an economic and spiritual profile of the area within a five-mile radius.

The data include everything from the style of music preferred in the region to the levels of religious commitment among its residents. Nearly half of the area’s residents were likely to not be involved with their faith, compared to a national average of 35%. Ten percent of the population would likely consider finding a good church a primary concern, Regele found.

Not all churches were as scientific about their building plans. St. Matthew’s Church in Newport Beach, for example, bought land four years ago on Bonita Canyon Drive because it was affordable and convenient for parishioners.

St. Matthew’s hopes to break ground for a new church by late summer on its lot just down the road from Mariner’s, the Rev. Stephen Scarlett said. For nearly a decade the Episcopal church has met in the back of a shopping center near the beach.

Scarlett said it wasn’t until after the deal was nearly complete that church leaders saw the Irvine Co.’s plans for more housing nearby. “We were very fortunate in our purchase of this property,” Scarlett said. “God was very good to us. We probably couldn’t buy it at the same price today--the values are astronomical.”