Love Costa Mesa emerged from a group of leaders and pastors who had been praying for Costa Mesa for 15 years that were convicted it was time to move beyond prayer to more effective collaboration with one another as well as with other leaders in the city.  The initial gathering to share this vision included 40 leaders from throughout the city, involved mapping out current efforts and resources throughout the city by various churches, non-profits, and agencies. On the very day of that initial gathering a city employee who had received a pink slip, took his own life by jumping off the top of city hall.  As we rallied around serving the city pertaining to this tragedy, it became a galvanizing event and helped us see and experience the value and importance of engaging with the needs of our city. Providing some focus, organization and communication that would lead to more of us praying for our city leaders and officials, loving our actual neighbors, and working together to help resolve the greater challenges in our city became our pursuit and we’ve been seeing amazing results.

As coordinated efforts have improved, we have seen hundreds of people experiencing homelessness find a home. As churches have made ongoing commitments to help resolve the literacy challenges in our schools, we have seen significant improvements and some of our schools have even received awards from the state for how much they have improved. As our neighboring network continues to grow, cultural barriers are getting broken down and practical needs are being met in our neighborhoods.

These are the things everyone loves to see, however the roots of this organization are prayer. We will continue bringing focus, organization, and communication around challenges in our city, but at our core we believe that as we continue bringing more and more people together to worship and pray to a loving, merciful and grace-filled God, we believe the results will continue to expand.