Reality is a family of churches. Reality Carpinteria was born on September 7, 2003. Since that time we have birthed churches in Los Angeles, Stockton, Ventura, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, Boston, London, and Honolulu. God has called Reality to be a church planting movement. We never sought to be this, but it has become clear that this is what God is calling us to do and be, and it is something we are passionate about.
Though planting is the common metaphor for starting new churches, we prefer to call what we do church birthing. Birthing is more labor intensive and relational than the planting metaphor suggests. When God called Reality to birth churches, He gave us a strategy that we knew would be slow, deeply relational, and require heavy investment. The birthing process has been all of those things. It has also been a wonderful process that has deeply enriched the life of our local church.
For Reality, growth means slow growth. Our goal is to plant healthy churches, not many churches. Jesus is the One who builds the church (Matt. 16:18), is the head of the church (Col, 1:18), is the only Senior Pastor in the church (1 Peter 5:4), and is the one who loves the church (Eph. 5:25). Therefore, we are deeply thankful that He has invited us to partner with Him in His passion of planting churches.