Since it’s founding in 1948, the family of St Andrews Presbyterian Church has demonstrated an unwavering dedication to missions. As a Christ-centered church, our commitment to missions is an identified key strength and value of our congregation.

Our History in Mission
Interestingly, a key distinctive of St. Andrew’s is that it has functioned as a “missional congregation” before the term was even coined. Essentially the idea of the “missional” church begins with the rediscovery that churches do not “do” mission. In the words of Lesslie Newbigin, “the church is (itself) the mission.” Or to put it another way, “It is not the God of the church that has the mission, but the God of mission who has the church.”
As a “missional church,” St. Andrew’s was instrumental in establishing a local hospital, Hoag Memorial Hospital Presbyterian, that is now one of the preeminent hospitals in western America, and was directly responsible for planting new churches in the surrounding communities of Costa Mesa, Huntington Beach, Corona del Mar and Irvine. At the same time, the church developed a value of being significantly “missions-minded” as it allocated significant portions of its annual operating budget to both local and world mission. In 1989, for example, the church committed nearly 42% of its total budget to kingdom work outside of the perimeter of its campus. Currently the church allocates 25% of its operating budget to missions, contributing over $2 million a year to ministries around the world through its mission budget and through various special offerings held throughout the year.
Over the years the church has assisted hundreds of men and women into full time Christian service either in the church or on the mission field, and directed thousands more into individual and team-based short term ministry and mission experiences, both locally and around the world.

Rev. Jim Birchfield, Executive Pastor & Minister of Missions

Our Mission
Our aim, with God’s help, is to continually empower our congregation to fulfill the Biblical mandate and to take the Gospel to the whole world making disciples of all nations. We do this by inspiring and challenging ALL members to be missionaries, providing training and equipping for missions, and by assisting and supporting people involved in missions.