Orange County Churches Review & Guide

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.

http://www.standrewspres.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 4/5
Beliefs: 4/5
Community: 4/5
Preaching: exegetical
Worship: contemporary on Sat night / traditional on Sun morning
Service times: Sat night - 5:30, Sun morning - 8:30, 10:15

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

I attended a Saturday night service in July. I was invited to go there by a friend of mine who attends St. Andrews and so I was able to sit with him and a few of his friends. That made me feel very welcome. St. Andrews seems to have a very strong sense of community. It is a large church, a couple thousand in members, but I would not be surprised if there are even more people involved in their mid-week Bible studies and other ministries.

For the most part the majority of the people appear to be upper middle class, mostly caucasian. I am not sure how people of varying cultural classes and interests would be received. I did not perceive any particular indicators that St. Andrews is significantly interested in cultural awareness and/or mission.

The worship of song was contemporary style. The worship team seemed to genuinley enjoy worshipping. That made it pretty easy to sort of follow their lead and sing along unto the Lord. All the songs were choruses and were projected on two large screens, one on each side of the platform.

The preaching was exegetical in format though the minister did some odd things with the text. The sermon was a study in Psalm 73, which seems to cleary be an apologetic Psalm both raising and answering the question of how God can be just when the wicked prosper. But rather than following this strongly evident theme in the text, the minister talked a lot about how Satan was tormenting David in this passage and how there is a spiritual battle going on in every one of us. My difficulty was that though spiritual /Satanic battle is a reality and though he was going through the Psalm verse by verse, he was clearly reading things into the text that were simply not there. It seemed like he was trying to get God off the hook by reverting to Satanic activity as the source for wickedness and spiritual struggle. This answer seemed odd to me since both this particular text and the rest of the Bible always pictures God as sovereignly and purposefully goverening Satanic wickedness.

Our church reviews are usually based upon only one visitation and what we can learn about the church from their website. For this reason there is always the possibility that the particular time I visisted just happened to be different from the norm. In this case I would like to give St. Andrews the benefit of the doubt for a couple of reasons. One, the preacher for that service was a guest preacher, Richard Mouw, the president of Fuller Seminary. Two, their doctrinal statement is very strong (with the exception of paedobaptism [learn what we see as the errors of infant baptism instead of believer baptism ] and egalitarianism [all roles are open to both men and women instead of some roles being designed solely for women and some roles designed soley for men, i.e. complementarianism). Three, I have been informed by a staff member that they do in fact affirm the Sovereignty of God in all things and are dedicated to carrying on the vision and convictions of the Reformation (ususally considered to be the 5 solas: the auhority of the Bible alone, salvation by faith alone, by grace alone, on the basis of Christ alone, for the glory of God alone).

Though I do have some secondary reservations on a few non-essential matters, this church does seem to be theologically sound at their core. I would recommend this church if you live in Newport Beach particulary in light of what appears to be a lack of churches in the immediately surrounding area who are committed to exegetical preaching and theological depth.

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Contemporary
Service time: 10:00

Website Review
No Website

Review: I attended the Easter service at Plaza Bible Church in 2004. This church meets in downtown Orange right near the Orange Circle. Plaza Bible Church belongs to the Foursquare denomination (www.foursquare.org), a Pentecostal group born in the early 1900’s out of the Wesleyan Holiness Tradition.

The first thing ones sees as they are walking in the front doors of the church is a sign with a Scripture verse engraved on it: Philippians 4:19 “My God shall supply all your needs according to his riches in glory.” The church building seats a few hundred and is decorated with elegant script messages painted on the side walls and a very real looking cross on the back wall behind the stage.

The time of worship in song was composed of contemporary Christian music led with guitar, drums, a piano, and three vocalists. The time of worship in the study of God’s Word consisted of the Pastor, Don Palmer talking about how Easter is a time of new beginnings. He began his sermon by sharing about how he did not start working on his sermon until the night before, but woke up early that morning to discover that his wife had put out Easter candy for his son which really inspired him for the day’s service. Pastor Don said it made him feel like God had something really special for everyone that day and that Jesus love on Easter was like His wife’s. He cried, then very passionately described the death and resurrection of Christ. The passage of Scripture Don referred to was John 21 which describes Jesus appearing to Peter after His resurrection. Then with a big smile he told everyone how we all can have a new beginning just like Peter.

There was a wide range of age groups present and everyone seemed to know each other very well. On the front steps of the platform there were several Easter lily plants they were giving away after the service.

I cannot recommend this church for their lack of solid exegetical preaching. Their denominational affiliation confesses core salvation beliefs but lacks theological depth and consistency. This is evident in their service which chiefly appeals to human emotion and experience rather than Scripture and reason.