Heart Revolution Church’s path to community transformation in San Diego, CA
Summary
Church: Heart Revolution Church | San Diego, CA
Type: Protestant | Skews young (avg. age 25-35)
Using Pushpay since: 10+ years
Products: Pushpay Giving + Custom Church App
A name change, a pastoral transition, and a pandemic hit the same week. Here’s how one San Diego church survived and came back serving harder than ever.
KEY RESULTS
- Retained financial stability after losing ~50% of donors in a single week
- Used platform analytics to identify congregation demographics and launch childcare services
- Funded targeted global and local missions (Ukraine, Hawaii) through cause-specific giving tabs without reducing regular tithes and offerings
- Church app serves as the primary seven-day-a-week connection point for a young congregation
The situation
Imagine rebranding your church, transitioning pastors, and having a pandemic shut everything down, all in the same week.
That’s exactly what happened to Heart Revolution Church. The San Diego congregation had 25 years of history, but leadership decided the name needed to reflect what had always been in their DNA. “Heart Revolution” had been part of their mission statement from the beginning. The timing of making it official, however, couldn’t have been worse.
The church’s finance director described the impact without sugarcoating it: “Looking back at reports, literally half of our donors walked out of our church that day.”
What followed wasn’t a growth strategy. It was survival. “To be honest, our focus was just making it through. Trying to rebuild, and figure out how we keep this church afloat and not close our doors. Because we’re not serving the community if we close our doors.”
The solution
Heart Revolution had been using Pushpay for nearly a decade before the crisis hit. When everything else was in freefall, the giving platform became the one thing they could count on. The finance director called it their “backbone for receiving funds,” noting that the tools “facilitate every donation that we receive as a church, but also provide ways to make it personal and measurable.”
But what helped them rebuild wasn’t just the ability to collect donations. It was the data.
- Demographic insight that drove action: Analytics from the platform revealed that the average age of their growing post-pandemic membership was 25-35. That one data point led directly to launching childcare services, removing a barrier that was keeping young parents from fully engaging.
- The app as a daily connection point: For a young congregation, Sunday isn’t the only touchpoint. The church app became what the finance director called “the pulse of the church”: lifegroups, sermon replays, message notes, giving, and weeknight events, all in one place, seven days a week.
- Cause-specific giving tabs: When crises emerged, whether the war in Ukraine or wildfires in Hawaii, the church opened targeted giving tabs on Pushpay to fund specific missions. The finance director shared a critical insight: “We don’t feel like it’s taking away from our regular tithes and offerings. We’ve actually found that when you have these specific avenues for people to give, to tie their heart to the needs of the community and to the globe, that actually brings more into the church.”
That last point is worth underlining. Cause-specific giving didn’t split the pie. It grew it.
The results
Heart Revolution didn’t just survive. They came back as a church that goes to their community rather than waiting for the community to come to them.
Every Thanksgiving, they distribute thousands of pounds of donated food to a line of cars that stretches nearly a mile. During back-to-school season, they provide hundreds of free backpacks and haircuts. They partner with one of San Diego’s largest homeless nonprofits, personally walking people in need to shelter facilities.
And their reach extends well beyond San Diego. Through Pushpay’s giving tabs, they’ve funded a pastor connected to their church in Ukraine and sent a church member to Hawaii to provide direct relief after the wildfires.
The finance director summed up the shift: “It’s no longer, ‘Come to Heart Revolution Church.’ Heart Revolution Church is going to the community.”
Tour Pushpay Giving
Community Size
Key Tools
- Digital Giving
Results
“Growth is really important to us, it’s a huge goal of ours… but we’re really focused on health. The more that we focus on health and doing things the right way, and for the right reasons, and trying to stay true to that gospel—the growth comes as a fruit.”
