practical questions
Are you splitting teaching with the other pastor(s)?
Branches has always had a teaching team with Andrew functioning as the primary, anchoring teacher most Sundays. As we come together, we will maintain a teaching team culture made up of diverse voices and that will include the Pastor of Shoreline, Ryan Coiner. Andrew will continue to be the most frequent teacher in the Branches community and will continue to be responsible for the teaching culture at Branches.
It's worth noting that not every gifted teacher with Branches needs to be featured regularly at the Sunday morning gathering. We are excited to discover the possibility of opening new additional venues and spaces for the many established and developing teachers and preachers of the Branches community to exercise their gifts for the benefit of our community.
Will staffing change? Are we letting anyone go?
There will be no staffing changes except that we will be combining with the Shoreline staff team. Anywhere there exists some overlap in responsibilities between the teams, we will be looking to combine our efforts together. Our commitment will be to honor every existing staff member at both churches and help them make the transition along with us.
What concessions, if any, are being made by Branches as we’re coming together with these two Baptist churches?
It’s true—one unique consideration moving forward is that Shoreline is a Baptist Church by heritage. In fact, their being Baptist is one of the reasons our partnership is possible because in the Southern Baptist Denomination the local churches own their own properties outright. It may seem strange—how did we end up in conversations of merging with not one but two Baptist churches at the same time? It’s simple: other denominations are not structured in such a way as to make what’s happening right now possible because they don’t have agency or control over their properties.
We want to make it clear that as we come together, we have already determined that we will not be joining any Baptist Denomination. Even so, we had already begun to give a partnership contribution to the Southern Baptist Mission Fund in anticipation of our coming together with HB Church and to fulfill our commitment to honor their 70-year legacy as a Baptist Church. This “partnership contribution” is nothing more than a voluntary gift with no further commitments or formal structure attached to it, and it goes to fund church-planting, church-revitalization, and relief efforts through the Southern Baptist network—works we already, and always, would support.
We understand some in the Branches community have a special affinity for the Southern Baptist heritage, and others, given their personal experience, have reservations. One thing to consider is that each Baptist church is autonomous and unique in its leadership, so one’s experience at a particular congregation has nothing to do with the personality and structure of another Baptist church. In our experience, we have found nothing but Kingdom-mindedness and goodwill among the congregants of Shoreline. And if you consider their founding statement of faith—“The Baptist Faith and Message”—there is really no divergence in the core theology of their tradition. They love God’s Word, serving God’s people, and reaching those who don’t know Jesus with the Gospel just like we do.
Now there is one topic, of no small consequence, that requires further elaboration: their understanding of the use of the title “Pastor”. Southern Baptists have more recently been deeply divided on the title being utilized as describing the ministry contributions of women in the church. This stems from the fact that, broadly-speaking, they consider the term to be synonymous with the biblical office of Elder/Overseer in the Scriptures. I (Andrew) believe that this is a misunderstanding and a difference of biblical interpretation. Each time the word “Pastor” (Shepherd) is used in the New Testament, it’s a verb describing a general function of spiritual leadership (to shepherd). It is true that Elders/Overseers are to shepherd (pastor) the church from their authoritative positions in the Church as it says in 1 Peter 5:2 and as Paul suggests in Acts 20:28, but I believe there are many other expressions of shepherding (pastoring) that do not imply principal leadership in the church. For instance, if a man or woman leads, cares for, and teaches youth, they are in effect acting as a “shepherd” or “pastor” to those youth. That’s why we employ the title for both Melissa and Austenn of our youth ministry.
Furthermore, if one considers a text like Ephesians Chapter 4, and the various giftings (ministry functions) assigned to the Church by God, alongside “pastor/teacher” is also listed “evangelist”, “apostle”, and “prophet”, yet no one seems to contend those too are timeless, established offices in the Church synonymous with the office Elder/Overseer. Yet somehow, in many Evangelical Christian communities, such as those of the Baptist tradition and even Calvary Chapel (of which many in Branches trace their faith heritage), the title of “Pastor” has risen in unique prominence among these various ministry functions from Ephesians 4 to become synonymous with the biblical office of Elder/Overseer.
This is just a cursory investigation into the issue, but one can see how complicated the discussion can get; how terms can be interpreted in various ways; and how through time and tradition, words can become endowed with unquestionable meaning and significance to believers. At Branches, we endeavor to not let these differences divide us.
Of highest consideration in these matters, and in truth, we do not theological differ in a substantial way from the leadership structures of Shoreline. Shoreline affirms a complementarian structure of church governance (men in the principal place of leadership) just as we do, represented in our all-male Elder Board made up of staff and volunteers. Shoreline also affirms the co-equal value of women and their giftedness for ministry and have women serving in a variety of leadership roles, just as we do. The only differences between us are a matter of semantics and terms.
As we mentioned at one of our family meetings we hosted in January 2025, Branches had already agreed to voluntarily relinquish the use of the title “Pastor” as we were coming together with HB Church. This was for the purpose of expressing sensitivity to the difference of understanding their congregation might have regarding the title’s meaning and use. To prepare for our coming together, in early 2025, we removed the title “Pastor” from both male and female staff from our website—adopting a new titling scheme that would still be consistent across genders so as not to convey an unequal approach. We will continue with that plan regarding the use of the title “Pastor” as we come together with Shoreline.
Interestingly, Baptist churches do not generally seem to be disturbed by the use of titles such as “Minister”, “Leader”, or “Shepherd” when assigned to women. In truth, all of these words are synonymous with the title “Pastor”. We are adopting a new titling scheme based on one of these accepted words. It’s worth noting, the women who serve in leadership on our staff team have been involved and included in all of these decisions.
In the end, nothing on a functional level is changing—the women and men of our congregation and staff will continue to do all the same work they’ve always done. Our theology and beliefs on the matter are also not changing. The temporary and voluntary relinquishing of these titles is part of doing the hard work of community in the Church and is for the purpose of building bridges with other believers for the sake of greater Kingdom impact. I know that I (Andrew) do not want to let words and titles and semantics stand in the way of all three of these congregations coming together for a greater purpose, and I am happy to relinquish any word someone wants to use to describe how I contribute to the Body of Christ if, in the end, it makes His Body stronger.
Will we remain “Branches HB” if we are potentially meeting at a Fountain Valley address?
That’s a great question and one we need to consider! To be honest, when we were initially speaking with Shoreline, Andrew was not even aware that their address was in Fountain Valley given that the border with Huntington Beach is blocks away. But it may be appropriate to simply drop the “HB” designation from our name if the address is technically located in Fountain Valley and we decide to relocate ourselves there long-term.
The more important question has to do with our ministry impact, and that isn’t going to be changing. We have always been a locally focused church and moving a few miles down the road is not going to substantially change our geographic investment and impact. We will still maintain a strong investment in our current ministry partners, and since we are a primary facilitator of Serve City and church collaboration in HB, that will also continue. Additionally, the ministry center we intend to run out of HB Church just a few miles up the street is located in Huntington Beach, so in a way we may actually see our investment in HB increase in the years to come.
If we move, some will find they are 5 minutes closer to our gatherings if they are coming from East Huntington Beach, Costa Mesa, or Fountain Valley, while others may find we are now 5 minutes further away. In the end we hope everyone understands that we never considered a substantial move out of our current geographic area because we are committed to the work and the people that are here. We do not believe the distance of the move is significant enough to impact our identity in a negative way or inhibit anyone from joining us on the journey if they were already with us.
I’ve got other questions that weren’t answered here. Where can I ask them?
Email Andrew or talk to him, our Elders, or our staff anytime you see us. We are open, transparent, and honest about what we know and are happy to communicate. And we will continue to update this page with further relevant information in the future as there are developments.
