Author of The Purpose Driven Life, Pastor Rick Warren of Saddleback Church, Lake Forest, California opened a new campus in Hong Kong on Sunday. The service brought together, for its first Sunday Service a total of 832 adults and children.
Local members of the community were said to be overjoyed with the opening and Pastor Rick wrote on his Facebook page that he loved them all.
Prolay Lam, one of the locals present during the opening said, on his Facebook page, that he was so thankful for Saddleback Church for bringing their energetic church to Hong Kong.
Lam went on to say that the church was full of great people who were full of love and had a great worship service and a great message. He added “All glory to our heavenly father.”
This is the first venture for Saddleback Church outside the U.S. although they have ten campuses in Southern California and have been going for 33 years. The church plans to plant more churches in 12 strategic “Gateway Cities” around the world in order to bring the final 3,800 people groups, who still do not have a church, together.
The first launch of Saddleback Hong Kong on October 6 at the Munsang College in Kowloon City, Hong Kong will be followed by churches in Berlin and Buenos Aires on the 13th and 20th of October respectively.
Other Saddleback church campuses are planned to be opened by the church in Accra, Amman, Bangalore, Johannesburg, London, Manilla, Mexico City, Moscow, and Tokyo in the near future.
Leader of Saddleback church Hong Kong, Pastor Stephen Lee, said that “Hong Kong has 4 percent population that is Christian and who attend church.” He added “Not too many people go to church. It’s only about 300,000 people attending church every week.”
Lee went on to say that he hopes to reach an estimated 80 percent of people who have dropped out of going to church along with the remaining 96 percent of the population of Hong Kong.
Lee continued to say that Saddleback church was not competing with local churches. He added that the aim of the church was to bring those who had stopped going to churches back to worshiping God and also to target those who had never been inside a church.