Orange County Churches Review & Guide

http://cmmethodist.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Hymns
Service times: 10:00 AM

Website Review - website currently down
Site Usability: 0/5
Site Design: 0/5
Site Content: 0/5

Review: I attended the weekly Sunday service in January of 2005. The First United Methodist Church of Costa Mesa meets in their historic church building complete with pews, a high vaulted ceiling, an orchestral organ, and stained glass windows. As I walked in I was greeted by two elderly men who handed me a bulletin containing the order of worship.

The meeting was led by a woman pastor named Julie Elkins. She directed the service in various prayers, responsive readings, and a message from the pulpit. She began by asking any visitors to stand up and introduce themselves to everyone. After this, everyone was to go around and greet each other.

Throughout the service there were several times when everyone was directed to either stand up or sit down. One time, while we were sitting, Julie Elkins asked for anyone who had any prayer requests to share them out loud. Julie had a prayer request for a good friend of hers who was recently diagnosed with cancer. She was very emotional and after collecting herself she prayed for her friend and for blessings upon the people present.

There were a couple of sections in the service when a man led the congregation in singing some hymns while he played the organ. In addition, there were two very talented younger children who played special music right before the time of offering. One played a beautiful piece on the violin and after that the other played a wonderful piece on the oboe.

The time of offering was led by a man who performed a ceremony where money from plates that been passed around were put on an alter in front of the church below a cross. He prayed a prayer announcing the money as a gift to God.

Later, Julie Elkins had this same man read a passage from the Gospel of John, after which she proceeded with her Sunday morning sermon. Her sermon was topical in nature. She said there was a principle in this passage of John about coming to see Jesus. The thrust of her sermon was that Jesus was a good teacher and that we all need to be taught, so “come and see” and be taught by the master teacher.

I cannot recommend this church for several reasons. The most obvious reason is infringement of Scriptural teaching concerning the roles of men and women and the leadership of the church (for questions see Council of Biblical Manhood and Womanhood ). Other reasons include the low esteem of Scripture (demonstrated by the non-exegetical nature of the sermon), and the low esteem of Christ, who was not only a good teacher but the Son of God. In addition, there appeared to be no mission mindset whatsoever. Nearly everyone present was elderly in age.

http://www.mosaic.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 2/5
Community: 3/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Choruses
Service times: 9:00 am

Website Review
Site Usability: 3/5
Site Design: 5/5
Site Content: 2/5

Review: I attended a service at Mosaic in the summer of 2004. The church meets in the heart of downtown Los Angeles in a dance club/bar. As I walked to the building from the parking lot there were a number booths I stopped to look at. Some sold food or coffee, some sold books, and some others were giving out information about Mosaic and various ministries of the church.

Inside the building it is obvious that it is a club. There is the bar at the back, disco balls hanging from the ceiling and a stage where the d.j. usually spins records in those early morning hours. But on Sunday mornings Mosaic converts this building into a place for worship by hanging various art pieces all over the building, by adding two big screens on each side of the stage, and by filling the place with chairs.

The worship of God in song was led by an eclectic group of musicians and singers who traded off taking leads. For example, one of the guitarists ,who was wearing a leather jacket and jeans with a bunch of holes in them, played right next to one of the singers who was wearing tight corduroys and a beanie. All of them appeared to be enjoying what they were doing, often closing there eyes or lifting up their hands as an act of worship to God. They played only choruses because they believe “hymns have no cultural relevance in a multiethnic, multicultural urban church.”

When the sermon time came I expected the pastor of Mosaic, Erwin McManus, to preach. Erwin McManus is the author of “Seizing Your Divine Moment” and a couple of other books. He calls himself a “cultural architect” and apparently has become what the L.A. times reported as “a guru among many younger American church pastors.” Mosaic hands out copies of the L.A. times article to people at one of their booths and has it on the front page of their website to see and download. But Erwin McManus was not there to speak on the Sunday I attended. Instead a young man shared a long story about a chain of dorm pranks he was involved in when he was in college. At different parts in the story he would reference various passages weaving them into his story. The point of his message seemed to be that he thought he wasn’t very loving when he was involved in those dorm wars and that we need close communities where we can really love each other.

Mosaic is to be commended for their interest in the arts and their courage to meet in a bar. However, I cannot recommend this church for their lack of esteem for the Word of God in their desire to reach out to culture. The doctrinal section on their web page offers nothing but simply says to get to know the lives of people at Mosaic. It states that if you are really wanting to read a “statement of faith” to read the Baptist Faith statement. Yet in the L.A. Times article Erwin McManus admits that though “Mosaic is affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention it does not subscribe to many (of their) stances…for example Mosaic allows for women pastors.”

www.hfcathedral.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 2/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Liturgical
Worship: Hymns
Service times: Mass- Sun.6:45, 8:00, 9:30, 11:15 am; 12:45 pm (Misa en Español); 5:00 pm & 10:00 am (Mass in sign language: At the Sisters of St. Joseph Motherhouse Chapel). Sat. 8:15 am & 5:00pm. Weekdays 8:15 am, 12:15 pm.

Website Review
Site Usability: 3/5
Site Design: 2/5
Site Content: 2/5

Review: I attended a service in May of 2004. The church is located on Glassel street just before you get to the circle in downtown Orange. As you walk up the stairs to the church you see a bronze statue of a women holding some flowers to the left. You walk through large wood double doors and into the sanctuary. Inside, the building has a high vaulted ceiling and several wood pews to sit in.

The service began with several readings from the priest. Most of the readings were prayers or confession to God through Jesus Christ though one of the readings was directed to “mother God.” Sometimes everyone would respond together out loud and other times we would all simply stand up or sit down. There was a time of singing as a group from the hymnals placed in the back of the pews. After the time of singing there was a time of greeting the people seated near us and then the priest made several announcements about things going on during the week. After the announcements the Priest walked behind a large elaborately decorated table and proceeded to perform the transubstantiation ceremony to celebrate the Eucharist.

The people at church were friendly and there seemed to be a lot going on at the church during the week according to the priest’s announcements. I also overheard some people talking during the greeting time who apparently knew each other and were quite involved at the church.

Throughout the service there was a sense of awe, mystery, and significance in the actions we were completing. God is presented and revered as holy other and the partaking of the bread and the wine are considered precious gifts from God that are essential for life.

The service concluded with the priest stretching out his arms toward us and pronouncing a blessing for everyone. As I walked out to the parking lot there were tables set up where some women from the church were selling roses for men to give to their wives or their mothers for mother’s day. Even though my wife is not a mother I thought it would be a great idea to buy a rose for her, so I went ahead and bought one. The lady who sold it to me smiled very big and wished me well as I walked away.

Though the respect and fear of God in Catholic churches is to be commended I cannot recommend this church due to their lack of commitment to God’s Word. The Roman Catholic Church believes it possesses a higher authority than the Bible and therefore believes in unbiblical doctrines such as the meritorious nature of the sacraments, papal infallibility, transubstantiation, purgatory, indulgences, the immaculate conception of Mary, veneration of saints, and many other things. The priest’s mediation in the giving of external objects, bread and wine, is the primary purpose of the service rather than expositing of God’s Word so that Christians may come to believe in its truth.

Website: http://www.crossingonline.com

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.