Mariners Plans to Put the ‘Mega’ Into ‘Megachurch’

The most visible part of the megachurch’s expansion plan is a quaint, New England-style chapel perched on a hilltop and surrounded by cottonwoods, southern magnolias and California pepper trees.

The charming building--something from a Vermont postcard--is intended to give the project a “churchy” feel. Without that nod to tradition, Mariners Church’s 10-year building project sprawled across 40 acres in Irvine might be mistaken for a college campus or small town, complete with park and lake.

Down the hill from the chapel, plans call for a 4,000-seat worship center with an outdoor amphitheater, a “community hub” with coffeehouse, food court, bookstore and library and a two-story youth center with roll-up garage doors, jumbo video screens, sand volleyball courts and a rock-climbing wall.

If approved by the Irvine Planning Commission tonight, the nearly half-million square feet of building space, including 170,000 square feet already built, will give Mariners one of the largest church campuses in Southern California.

So far, the church’s plans have received no opposition at public hearings.

“We looked at the project, and most people don’t have a problem with it,” said John Greene, vice president of Irvine Residents for Responsible Growth. “They’re adding an awful lot of square footage, but they appear to have a handle on it. The church has been a real good neighbor.”

The final price tag for the expansion hasn’t been tallied, church leaders said, but the first of an anticipated three phases will cost $50 million.

“Our dream is to create a one-of-a-kind spiritual center for every day of the week, not just Sundays,” said Senior Pastor Kenton Beshore, who presides over an average of 4,500 worshipers each weekend. “We can imagine [people] dropping in to the coffeehouse to meet friends and hear live music or take their lunch hour by a quiet lake. We want to create a safe refuge for our kids to hang out, listen to music, meet friends.”

Megachurch campuses tend to mirror the secular community, but with a Christian flavor, said Scott Thumma, a professor with Hartford Seminary’s Institute for Religion Research in Connecticut. He has studied such large, full-service churches for a dozen years.

“The trend for megachurches is to create a whole alternative environment for their members where they walk into a garden of paradise of sorts,” Thumma said. “They’re taking everyday life and saying, ‘We can duplicate it here.’ Schools, restaurants, after-school activities--they are duplicating and baptizing everyday life.”

The Mariners chapel, designed for weddings and smaller services, will serve as the church’s “visible icon,” easily seen from the busy intersection of Bonita Canyon Drive and Newport Coast Drive just south of the UC Irvine campus.

The expansion will create “a fairly significant campus, but first and foremost, we’re a church,” said Brian Norkaitis, who is spearheading the project as Mariners’ director of development. “And what’s the best way to say that? A chapel with a steeple. When people drive by, the first thing they think: ‘This is a church.’ They will remember.”

Fast Growth in the ‘80s and ‘90s

Mariners, a nondenominational church, started services in 1965 with a handful of couples in a Newport Beach home, then underwent explosive growth during the 1980s and ‘90s.

When completed, the size of the Mariners campus will rival any found at America’s 600 or so megachurches, defined as having more than 2,000 worshipers per weekend.

Suburban Chicago’s Willow Creek, the granddaddy of megachurches with a weekly attendance of 17,000--far more than Mariners’ 4,500--has 352,000 square feet of space on 155 acres with another large building under construction.

In Orange County, the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, with 7,500 in attendance on Sundays, will have nearly 300,000 square feet on 40 acres when its latest building is completed.

And Saddleback Church in Mission Viejo, which draws 15,000 worshipers a weekend, has 150,000 square feet on 80 acres and is building an additional 70,000 square feet of space.

The Mariners congregation acquired its land during the past five years through a merger, a land swap with another church and the pending purchase of 16 acres from the Irvine Co. reportedly costing $17 million.

Mariners leaders said they hope to attract residents moving into the new developments in Orange County such as Newport Coast.

“We want to meet the growing spiritual needs of our community, and this requires our church to really stretch,” Beshore said. “When the houses are built and families move in, we want to be the first to welcome their kids and help them feel part of a loving community.”

The church received nearly $18 million in pledges from members during its initial round of fund-raising.

Thumma said he’s seen some grand designs by megachurches stall due to such factors as changes in leadership or downturns in the economy.

“It puts an added pressure on the congregation,” Thumma said. “The folks who argue that going to megachurches is a lesser commitment than a small church have never been in a $100-million fund-raising campaign.”

The Mariners expansion will include four synchronized traffic lights to ease congestion and 3,500 parking spaces--far more than city requirements. Crystal Cathedral has fewer than half that much parking.

With parking lots placed at the borders of the property, the central space will have a park-like feel, planners said.

“Once you leave your car--the symbol of Southern California--you’ll be overwhelmed with the space and the natural elements,” Norkaitis said. “You’ll be able to withdraw from the world and come into a spiritual environment.”

During the first phase of the Mariners expansion, church leaders plan to complete the purchase of 16 adjacent acres and build the 19,000-square-foot youth center and the 82,000-square-foot building for its children’s ministry, which features a two-story slide. They also plan to buy land in Santa Ana to expand a learning center for disadvantaged families.

Groundbreaking could occur within the next six months, church officials said.

Norkaitis said the construction schedule is fluid and depends on both the timing of donations and church needs.

The worship center--twice the size of Mariners’ existing sanctuary--the parking structure and the amphitheater would be built during phase two.

During the final phase, the current 1,900-seat sanctuary would be converted to an atrium office building. That phase also calls for a family recreation center with three basketball courts, aerobic and weight rooms, a wedding chapel, a combination lake and baptismal and a “community hub” with coffeehouse, food court, bookstore and library.