On Tuesday evenings, Casa de Oración Christian Church (also known as CdO Church) hosts discipleship classes. A day later, it has young adult gatherings and throughout the week, its members come together for Bible study. Sundays are for worship, with three services in Spanish and one in English.
But even vibrant places of worship need help sometimes. With our building and funding services, CdO Church has found a new home that provides enough space to journey with those seeking God’s love and presence—especially young adults in the Hispanic community.
Freedom, change, and new possibilities
CdO Church started off as a family operation when Lead Pastor Xose Escamilla and his father Jose launched it in 1990.
A year later, congregants started gathering at Central Christian Church in San Diego, CA, where worship services were initially only offered in Spanish. In 1993, Central Christian Church closed and donated its facility to Disciples Seminary Foundation (DSF), who then leased the property to CdO. The building had major repairs done in 2020, so DSF worked with us on a building evaluation the following year to identify any other problem areas, of which there were few.
As Casa de Oración’s weekly worship service attendance swelled to 600 folks, it soon became clear that a larger property was needed. So when First Baptist Church of National City put its property up for sale in 2023, Pastor Xose and his leadership team jumped at the opportunity to settle into a new home. Due to the large asking price, they partnered with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) Pacific Southwest Region to qualify for our property purchase loans. This funding, in addition to our Holy Places Grant, which helps new and established Disciples congregations build their first house of worship or their first church building, supported their acquisition of the property.
“Casa de Oración had waited and prayed for years to purchase a permanent house of worship,” recalls Rev. Rosario Ibarra, a member of our Building and Capital Services Advisor team. “It was a pleasure to partner with Pastor Xose and the leadership team to finally find a place where Casa may continue serving and reaching out to the community, sharing God’s love, and making a difference in the lives of many families in National City and beyond.”
Helping people encounter God
With a place to call its own, the average worship attendance for the congregation’s Sunday services have grown to 1,000. Pastor Xose attributes this success to various factors, from practicing a very structured way of doing ministry to one-on-one invitations, but the most important one is centering on Jesus Christ.
“People are not looking for a particular church with a particular name. In fact, they’re not even looking for churches. They’re searching for something deeper than that,” he explains. “We don’t promote the church, denomination, nor certain ideologies. We just promote Jesus by the way we live our lives, how we act, and how we treat people.”
He goes on to clarify that the community of faith’s mission is about following the gospel as well as acknowledging the Great Commandment and Great Commission. For him, the faith community’s message isn’t religious, at least in the institutional sense. Instead, it’s about experiencing one’s personal relationship with the living God through Jesus.
“We highly emphasize discipleship, which means teaching people about the faith that they have embraced—and not only understanding their faith, but understanding why they believe it. That makes a big difference. In other words, it’s not blind faith,” Pastor Xose points out. “I would compare it to the blind man who was questioned by the religious elites. He said, ‘I don’t know a lot of things you’re asking me right now, but the only thing I know is that once I was blind, and now, I see.’ People may join a faith community and all they know is that they felt better after doing so, but it goes further than that. It’s not enough to just know that something made you feel good.”
This is where the discipleship programming comes in. Each of its six levels has ten lessons each, with one lesson being taught per week. The topics range from the sacraments of baptism and communion to what Bible verses and chapters are.
Seeking purpose and direction in God
Many of the folks at CdO are Millennials and Gen Z. They come with a lot of questions about their faith and are even encouraged to ask the ones “they aren’t supposed to ask.” At the weekly young adult life group meetings, led by others aged 18 years old and above, participants are provided with a space to feel comfortable. Eduardo “Lalo” Olivares describes the young adult ministry, called 40:31 after Jeremiah 40:31, as informal and “less church-y.” He is the worship ministry leader and is part of 40:31’s leadership team.
“I think as a church gets older, the younger generations tend to be sidelined. In our case, everyone is invited to be part of this movement,” Lalo adds. “Children participate in our youth ministry, but they are invited to help the teachers as well. They don’t have to wait until an older age to serve. This allows them to feel part of the community. We have young adults helping in the nursery, cafe, security, and worship ministries.”
CdO makes 40:31 accessible for young adults, offering them rides to and from the life group meetings. It’s also a place where participants don’t have to feel othered because of who they are. Most of its members, and those of the wider congregation, come from Mexico, with others originating from Central and South America.
“I don’t think about my identity at church, but at school or when I started working, people would consider certain traditions that I had as ‘so of my culture.’ When I would go to Mexico, people there thought I was so Americanized,” Lalo admits. “Here we aren’t ignoring where we’re from and we’re not keeping that from uniting us.”
CdO’s dream for the future
With its commitment to the Great Commission as its guide, Casa has launched communities of faith across the Pacific Southwest Region, one of which has an average worship attendance of 300. Three others range from 60 to 80 attendees. Earlier this year, it took this commitment further by founding Vision 5-500-5, a plan to baptize 500 people and plant five faith communities in the next five years. The church has already baptized 74 people in this year alone.
“We are very grateful that Disciples Church Extension Fund was there to sustain us. Because of its support, a vital ministry in this region was able to continue,” Pastor Xose says. “Otherwise, we don’t know what would have happened if we didn’t have a place to meet, especially with the size of the congregation that calls this church their home.”
Is your faith community looking for a place of worship that better fits its members and ministries? Your regional Building and Capital Services Advisor can assist you.