Orange County Churches Review & Guide

The Crossing

November 14th, 2004

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 2/5
Community: 4/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Contemporary
Service: Saturday 5, 6pm Sunday 8:30, 10 and 11:30 a.m

Website Review
Site Usability: 3/5
Site Design: 3/5
Site Content: 3/5

Review: I attended a service in June 2004. After walking in I could not help but feel a little bit like I just walked into a store. The crossing is striking because they have television screens everywhere, probably at least twenty right on stage all stacked together, not to mention the two big projector screens on each side of this television monument. The stage and the building walls were also covered with exercise equipment (treadmills, a free-weights bench, bicycles, rock climbing gear etc.) From what I gathered, the crossing always teaches topical themes that they get from television, commercials, etc. When I was there the Gatorade slogan “Is it in you?” was their current theme, hence the sports equipment everywhere. I believe the series before the Gatorade one was “extreme makeover.” They always hang a big banner of the current theme on the side of the building, which you can see from the 55 freeway.

The worship time consisted of a band who led everyone in a few songs, a skit, and a brief talk from the pastor. The band sounded really good acoustically, which made it easy to sing along. Most all the songs were songs of petition focusing on human need. On the stage there were also televisions facing the band. The worship leader kept looking into her television monitor, so I took a closer look to see what was being shown on it. Somehow they had a live video feed of the band playing being displayed on those televisions. The same things was displayed on all the other screens in the room during the worship in song time.

The skit was about a man who sat down at his desk to spend some time with God but kept getting interrupted or distracted. At the end of the skit he opens the Bible and begins to read. After the skit, pastor Tim Celek gave a topical message on spending time with God. He quickly referenced a few verses and then talked about how spending time with God is like going to the gym. His main point was to use the “…analogy of physical conditioning to teach how discipline applied to your spiritual life can have the same impact as a rigorous training regiment can have for your physical body.” He concluded with prayer and dismissed everyone.

The crossing states on their website that they believe that the Bible is “inspired by God (and) is truth without any mixture of error.” This is much to be commended. However, this belief does not seem to exemplify itself in their preaching. The preaching and thrust of the church seems to communicate that they believe one’s own experience is a better source for communicating truth. There does not seem to be high concern for rightly interpreting the God inspired words of the Bible. In fact, they explicitly state that they the crossing is to be “a safe place to investigate Christianity without guilt or pressure.” This is difficult since the main message of the Bible is that all humans are guilty of sin and in need of the salvation of Jesus Christ. Which brings up another thing, the name of Jesus was never mentioned once in the entire service, which seems a curious practice for a Christian church.

The Crossing publishes their statement of beliefs online. For the most part it is a general evangelical statement of faith, though it has some funny language in different parts, like the “three personalities of God.” Yet, essentially they believe in the traditional affirmations of the Christian faith even though most of those convictions do not find their way to their service.

The Crossing is a church that seems to have lost their doctrinal distinctiveness in their worship service. The service as a whole felt very man-centered and the message was mainly that we need to be spiritual. I cannot recommend this church because it would be very difficult for one to truly grow in their knowledge of the Son of God when His Word is not revered.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 14th, 2004 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Churches, 2 Star Churches. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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