Where we came from
Branches started nearly twenty years ago as a church for people who don’t go to church. In a lot of ways, it still is.
In 2007, Eric “Boogie” Rose started Branches in Dana Point for people who had given up on church but hadn’t necessarily given up on God. People who needed a place to show up as they were, without pretending. Over the years, Branches met in several places before settling into our permanent home at Agape 1928 in San Clemente.
Boogie lived committed to seeing God’s kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven. We lost him too soon, in 2024. His legacy of welcome, humility and an open table remains, and it still shapes how we gather.
What’s changed
Over the years, something shifted in the people who came. Many of us grew more committed to Jesus and less comfortable with the forms faith often takes in American church life. Those forms lean on power and certainty, get defensive when questioned, and judge faithfulness by who gets kept out. We haven’t walked away from the church. We’re trying to remember what it was for.
You won’t find a lead or senior pastor here. Our pastoral team and elder board share the work of caring for this community.
The name comes from Jesus’ words in John 15: “I am the vine; you are the branches.” Staying connected to him is the whole point. The structures around that are secondary.
The church we’re learning to become
One of our pastors, Ryan, wrote a letter to our community that begins with a simple line: “I dream of a church that looks like Jesus.” In practice, that means a few things.
Jesus stays at the center. He ate with the people religion had rejected, forgave his enemies instead of defeating them, and showed that God’s power looks like self-giving love. We read Scripture through him. We believe it is God-breathed, which is exactly why we won’t flatten it into a rulebook or use it as a weapon.
We know where we come from. We lean on the saints, mystics and ordinary believers who came before us. Tradition is something we receive, live in, and hand on, refined by the Spirit and corrected by Christ. We don’t keep it behind glass.
We pray slowly. We make room for silence, and we trust that music, art and beauty can sometimes carry the gospel further than an argument can.
We try to stay humble. We want to be a church that can say “we were wrong,” that listens to people who have been hurt, and that measures faithfulness by who is healed and welcomed home.
