Orange County Churches Review & Guide

http://www.marshillchurch.org

Review: I know that this church isn’t anywhere near Orange County. But I was in Seattle last weekend and went to visit this church and was thoroughly impressed.

Mars Hill meets in the “Ballard” district of Seattle, Washington, in a large warehouse painted grey. On one hand it just looks like another industrial building in the middle of many but on the front wall next to the Mars Hill Church sign are the words, “Truth, Meaning, Beauty, Community,” in large white letters. As you walk through the church doors the foyer has indie style art hanging on the walls. Throughout the rest of the building hangs large vintage style lamps from the high, black painted, warehouse ceilings.

The time of worship consisted of singing, preaching, and the partaking of the Lord’s Supper. The time of worship in singing was led by a tall young man with a long goatee. The music was a sort of an inventive rock style with electric guitars, drums, a fiddle, and a accordian. The songs were not the normal pop Christian worship songs you hear at most churches. I discovered later that they write most all their own lyrics and music. The lyrics had a distinctly doctrinal focus. One song was almost word for word the Nicene Creed.

The time of worship in the study of God’s Word was lead by Mark Driscoll, one of the founding pastors of Mars Hill. We studied Gen.19:30-38. Mark was rigorous in his work with the text. He did not use it as a spring board to talk about himself but rather spent much time attempting to demonstrate why this text was in the Bible. He spoke openly and honestly about the issues the text raised like incest, rape, drunkenness, homosexuality and sexual abuses. He challenged the men of the congregation to be strong spiritual leaders in their home by following hard after God. He concluded by showing how despite the wickedness of the sin in the passage that God Sovereignly used the family line that resulted from the sin of Gen 19 to be the line from which Christ was born. The thrust was we are all screwed up but there is hope for us in Christ and that what is evil God means and uses for good. At that point he prayed and invited people to come to Christ and worship by partaking of the elements which communicate his body and blood.

After the service I discovered that Mars Hill Church also has an art venue and a music venue where many “secular” artists are invited share their creativity. There was a mixed range of people present at the service I attended. I read an article in the newspaper about Mars Hill which said that it has a reputation for being a popular church for outcasts who smoke, are tattooed, have piercings, are gay and many other things. The article also said that Mark Driscoll has a reputation in Seattle for being the “cussing pastor.”

The overall experience at Mars Hill was very good. There was a strong artistic presence and open welcoming of all different types of people. At the same time there was high view of God and His Word communicated throughout the service. They seem to have a very good grasp of both doctrine and mission.

http://www.alccpasadena.com

Church Review
Scriptural View: 5/5
Beliefs: 5/5
Community: 5/5
Preaching: Exegetical
Worship: Hymns & Choruses
Service times: Sun. 10:00 AM

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

Review: I attended the Sunday morning service in May of 2004. The moment I walked through the front door, several people greeted me and began asking me many questions. They were very friendly and invited me to sit with them.

The service began with prayer of petition that God would be glorified in the service. Abundant Life Community Church is part of the Sovereign Grace denomination Sovereign Grace Ministries . Sovereign Grace is the denomination from which PDI music (People of Destiny International Music) was formed and so we sang many PDI songs. All of the them were very lyrically strong (God-centered & man minimizing) and musically pleasing (led by a young man on an acoustic guitar). A couple of the stanzas of a song called “Haven’t You Been Good” particularly impressed me:

Thank you for the cross
Thank you Lord for drawing me
Out of millions lost
Thank you Lord for saving me

Haven’t You been good
Haven’t You been so good
Glory to Your name
Glory to Your holy name

Sovereign Grace is not only a Reformed denomination doctrinally but also a charismatic one. This was evident during one portion of the song time when someone went forward to the elders whispering something in their ears. When the current song we were singing was over, one of the elders, Ron Boomsma went up to the microphone explaining that the Holy Spirit had moved upon someone present to share something with everyone. He then handed the microphone over to that person who shared about her overwhelming feeling that we shouldn’t hold anything back because God was so worthy of our praise.

The sermon was delivered by one of the two elders who lead the church named Lynn Baird. He began by explaining that their church teaches through the Bible book by book and deals with every verse and every word. On this Sunday they were continuing their study in the book of Acts and were in chapter 16. Lynn was very passionate and at the same time very careful with the text explaining the genre and purpose of Acts, the relevant historical and cultural background and he dealt with the individual words of the chapter. The main thrust or theme of the message was reaching out to the world with the gospel.

At the conclusion the sermon there was a time of prayer and service ended. As soon as the service was over my wife and I were swarmed with people coming and talking us. We were actually invited out to lunch by three different people. One man took me to see their bookstore and ended up buying me three different CD’s. During the following weeks after we attended this church two different men called me to see how we were doing.

I would highly recommend Abundant Life Community Church as a great place for anyone to grow in their knowledge and love of God through the study of His Word and fellowship with His people. They are somewhat conservative culturally (some of the women wear head-coverings and wives are discouraged from working outside of the home) which may inhibit them missionally. But their doctrinal strength and devotion to God’s Word makes this church an excellent place to worship.

http://www.gracechurch.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 5/5
Beliefs: 5/5
Community: 3/5
Preaching: Exegetical
Worship: Hymns
Service times: Sun. 8:30 & 10:15 AM

Website Review
Site Usability: 5/5
Site Design: 4/5
Site Content: 5/5

Review: I attended a Sunday service at Grace Community Church on Mother’s Day of 2004. After parking across the street I walked into the large sanctuary and found a seat in one of the many pews. First there was an opening prayer and then the choir and orchestra played led the congregation in singing a number of hymns which focused on the greatness and majesty of God. The general feeling in the air was one of utmost reverence and awe for the God this significant amount of people had gathered for. After the time of worship in music and song, John MacArthur, the well known Bible teacher and commentator, delivered the Sunday morning message from the Word of God. MacArthur teaches through the Bible book by book, dealing with every verse and every word. At that time he was in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 12. MacArthur put a lot of emphasis on the historical background of the text, the narrative framework of Matthew, and the weight of Jesus’ words and actions in the passage. In conclusion he called upon people to apply the text by believing in Christ instead of standing by demanding a sign as an evil and adulterous generation does.

I highly recommend this church as a great place for one to grow in their knowledge and love of God and His Word. Grace is very traditionally conservative regarding cultural freedoms in Christ, which can easily inhibit gospel mission and openness to all people types communally. However, the strength of Grace is their high view of God and their commitment to the careful exposition of Bible. The comment posted includes a more in depth review which would be important if you are seriously considering this church.

http://www.porticochurch.com/

Church Review
Scriptural View: 5/5
Beliefs: 5/5
Community: 5/5
Preaching: Exegetical
Worship: Choruses
Service times: 10:00 am

Website Review
Site Usability: 4/5
Site Design: 4/5
Site Content: 3/5

Review: I attended a service at Portico in November. The meeting I attended was at the Ugly Mug coffee shop in downtown Orange where the church gathers on Sunday mornings. The Ugly Mug is a old-town house converted into a coffee shop and has sort of become the hip, indie, gypsy, artsy (and whatever other cool adjectives you want to fill in) hang out for many of the Chapman University students over the last few years. The main room packs out around 50 or more people on some nights when the coffee shop hosts poetry readings or live music.

Shortly after walking through the doors I was greeted by a couple of genuinely nice guys. They told me that they had just recently started having church together there at the Ugly Mug last month. We chatted for awhile and then the service began. Everyone took a seat and then one of the guys I had been talking to led us all in the singing of a couple popular worship choruses of petition while playing his guitar.

After the worship time in song, the Pastor, Jon Cochron explained that Portico believes in studying God’s Word by going through the books of the Bible and dealing with each verse. This week’s passage of study was Philippians 2:12-30. Pastor Jon passionately proclaimed that the command of verse 12, “to work out your salvation” is not a working for salvation but is rather the proper result of God’s saving work in our lives. He showed how verse 13 clearly states this salvation is because it is “God who works in you to will and to do His good pleasure.” Pastor Jon held out his forearms showing his tattoos which have the words “sola gratia” (grace alone) inscribed on one and the words “sola fide” (faith alone) inscribed on the other and explained that salvation is always by grace alone through faith alone in Jesus in Scripture. He was rigorous in pointing out that salvation is something God does in us and that the faith he gives us is shown true by the good works He enables us to perform. Pastor Jon followed the text closely teaching that good works are what enables us to shine like lights so that people might see Christ and be compelled to worship and love God through Him. As a group we looked at the three examples of such lights that this passage of Philippians refers to: Paul, Timothy, and Epaphroditus. It was pointed out how each example challenges us as Christians to be more than just what Pastor Jon called, “the frozen chosen.” Instead, he said we as Christians need to reach out and take the gospel to our neighbors and co-workers and everyone else with Christ’s love and good deeds. Pastor Jon spoke many other encouraging words and concluded his sermon with the serving of the Lord’s Supper. People intermittently walked up to partake of the elements while the guy I met at the beginning of the service led everyone in a few more songs of human petition and a couple of songs of declarative praise to God for who He is.

I would highly recommend this church as a great place to grow in your knowledge and love of God both because of their strong commitment to the study of God’s Word and because of their strong commitment to reach out to the neo-pagan culture of our day.

Website: http://www.cefconline.org/

Church Review
Scriptural View: 5/5
Beliefs: 5/5
Community: 4/5
Preaching: Exegetical
Worship: Hymns & Choruses
Service: 8:00, 9:30 and 11:00 a.m

Website Review
Site Usability: 4/5
Site Design: 3/5
Site Content: 2/5

Review: I attended the a service in August. The people there were very friendly. Someone met me at the door when I first walked in and asked if I was new and helped me to find a seat. There seemed like there were a lot of things going on in the church and that it would be fairly easy to get more involved.

The service consisted in worship of song and of worship in the study of God’s Word. The worship of song was a blend of hymns and contemporary choruses led by a young man. The sermon was excellent. The study was from Ephesians 3:14-21, a prayer of the Apostle Paul’s. The study not only rigorously dealt with the text but rigorously gripped my heart stirring me not only to want to pray more but to pray with the glory of God in view. Pastor David Hegg, the preaching and teaching elder, leads in the study of God’s Word by going through books of the Bible and studying them verse by verse. Apparently this was his twenty-third sermon in Ephesians.

Corona EV Free is firmly committed to inerrancy both in their doctrine and their practice. The whole service was very God-centered and very biblically oriented, holding fast to the spirit and passion of the reformation. You kind of got the feeling that the whole service was about the Bible and that these people all gathered because they loved studying that book together.

The soundness and depth of biblical teaching and reflection is definitely Corona EV Free’s strength. However, they seem to be somewhat insensitive to cultural issues. While people were very friendly and I believe truly desirous of being missional, they lacked cultural (not racial) diversity and therefore cultural relevance. Most were dressed nicely, anyone who was not might feel out of place. The music (not the hymns or choruses) were reflective of the seventies music era when churches first started using pianos instead of organs.

I would highly recommend this church as a great place for someone to grow in their faith due to their strong commitment to the Word of God in all things.