God set the table and called us friends.
A modern liturgical church in San Marcos, rooted in the Anglican tradition.
Sundays at 10am · 800 W Mission Road
Break bread with us
Companion is a word with bread baked into it: com, with, and panis, bread. A companion is, literally, the one you share bread with. Jesus made that his whole method. He ate with people until they became friends. So do we. Same table, three places, and you can start at whichever one you like. None of them is the waiting room for the others.
And if gluten is not your friend, the bread at our table comes gluten-free as well.
On Sunday
Sundays at 10am we pray old words, hear the scriptures, and come to the table for communion. The service moves between English and Spanish, which is what a church in this neighborhood sounds like. Everyone is invited, wherever your faith is. The whole service is up on the screen, so you always know what is coming next. Children start in the room with everyone, then join others in worship experiences tailored to their age groups.
The vibes on Sundays →At a house
Church does not fit in an hour. Parish groups meet in homes in Carlsbad, Vista, San Marcos and Escondido to eat actual dinner, read, pray, and stay long enough to be known. Come as you are, into someone's actual house on a weeknight, and come hungry.
Life together at the Abbey →In the neighborhood
Restoration is already underway in this town, and we would rather join it than run our own. Alongside Universidad Popular we walk with our immigrant neighbors: shared meals, shared work, Spanish mixed into the English. There is a community garden on the property, and there is always room for another pair of hands. We go as companions.
Meet our neighbors →
Why we exist
To form unlikely friends into the friends of God, and join God in the restoration of all things.
In that order. Unlikely friends come first, because who is at the table changes what the table means.
What shapes us
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Unlikely friends
We are gathered across social, ethnic, and economic lines that most churches quietly keep. It is just who ends up in the room, and it is the best thing about the room.
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Friends of God
Sharing meals. Being patient with one another. Forgiving each other. Spending time together. Jesus called this friendship, and it is slower and better than being useful to each other.
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The restoration of all things
On earth as it is in heaven is a prayer about this earth: wages, papers, housing, bodies. We do not spiritualize it.
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Formed by the liturgy
Liturgy means the work of the people. Week after week the same words do something to us that good intentions never manage on their own.
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Being with before working for
Most of what matters in a life cannot be fixed. It can only be faced, and it is better faced with company.
Being with
We are not here to fix you
There is a kind of help that keeps the helper safely above the person being helped. We are trying to want something else. So we practice presence: sitting with scripture, with silence, with each other, with the parts of our stories we would rather skip.
Every week the bread is broken and handed over, to grown-ups and to children reaching on tiptoe, and every week the same thing is true. It is given, not achieved.
Life together at the Abbey →
Why Anglican
A creedal church, not a confessional one
Most people here did not grow up Anglican. They came from nondenominational churches, Baptist churches, youth groups, or from nothing in particular. So the question is fair, and the answer turns on a distinction that sounds technical and is not.
- Creedal
- The Apostles' Creed began as the questions the earliest church asked people at baptism, and it is still being said in Nairobi and Cairo and a village in England. God the Father almighty. Jesus Christ, his only Son, crucified and risen. The Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body. That is the floor. It is not everything a person could believe. It is what the church has always believed, and it holds.
- Confessional
- Other traditions gather around a longer document that settles the finer points: how election works, what happens in baptism, who governs, how the world ends, your sexual ethics. There is real care in those documents. The cost is that unity then depends on agreement about details, so every difference is a possible fracture, and the fractures keep dividing.
We are not held together by a statement we all sign. We are held together by a table we all eat at. People with significant theological differences take the bread from the same hands, and so do the newly curious, the barely believing, and the person who came because someone they love asked them to.
Plenty of us came from churches built the other way, where a difference gets found and a line gets drawn and the splinter splinters again. We are not interested in scoring points against them; some of them taught us our first lessons in what it feels like to be loved and to love scripture. But reading each other for signs of error never made anyone holy. It mostly made so many people alone and with a small view of God.
So we do not ask for certainty at the door, in specifics of what you believe or that you believe at all (seriously). We ask for participation, and let the words and rhythms do their work. An old Latin phrase summarizes this beautifully still, Lex orandi, lex credendi: the way we pray becomes the way we believe, and it happens in that order more often than not.
What we mean by an abbey →
Sunday, most weeks. There is room in the next one.
What is next
On the calendar
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October 30
Día de los Muertos with Universidad Popular
With Universidad Popular, San Marcos
Our neighbors
Joined to a neighborhood
An abbey is for the people around it. We share our building, our tables, and our weeks with neighbors across San Marcos: learning alongside Universidad Popular, walking with immigrant families, showing up where we are invited rather than where we would be impressive. Restoration is God's work, and it is already underway in this town. We would rather join it than run our own.
Meet our neighbors →Before you come
Questions people actually ask
- What time are services at Restoration Abbey?
- Restoration Abbey worships Sundays at 10am at 800 W Mission Road, San Marcos, CA 92069, right off W. Mission Road between San Marcos Middle School and Palomar College. There is parking in front of the building, along the side, and around the back. The service runs a little over an hour.
- What kind of church is Restoration Abbey?
- Restoration Abbey is an Anglican church in San Marcos, California. Worship is liturgical and sacramental: scripture, prayer, and communion every week. The congregation is theologically rooted and socially engaged.
- What should I wear, and what happens when I walk in?
- Wear whatever you already own. You will see collars at the front and jeans in the pews. The whole service is up on the screen, so nothing is a secret and you always know what is coming next. You are free to sing, pray, sit quietly, or just watch, and all four of those are an ordinary first Sunday.
- What happens with my kids?
- Everyone starts in the room together. After a short sermon for the children they are released: Godly Play for three and up, The Upper Room for ten and up. They come back right after the prayers of the people, in time for the updates and communion. Babies and toddlers are welcome to stay in the service the whole way through. The congregation is not fully gathered unless the children are present.
- Can I take communion if I am not a member?
- Yes. The whole church is invited to communion at Restoration Abbey, whatever your background and whether or not you have figured out what you believe. There is no membership requirement: hold your hands out and the bread is put in them. Gluten-free bread is available, and there is grape juice as well as wine.
- I am done with the evangelical church. Is this just the same thing with candles?
- No. A lot of people here arrived tired, and some arrived hurt, and what met them was an older tradition that does not depend on the pastor being impressive or on everyone agreeing politically. The liturgy carries the week when your own faith is thin, which is most of what people mean when they say this feels different.
Sundays at 10am. The table is long.
Liturgy, bread, kids welcome and audible. Come as you are; leave less alone.
800 W Mission Road, San Marcos, CA 92069
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