4 Stars (Recommended)
Grace Brethren Church
St. Andrews Presbyterian
Whittier Hills Baptist Church

3 Stars
First Evangelical Free Church of Fullerton
Hope Chapel
Plaza Bible Church
Rock Harbor
Saddleback
Saint James Episcopal

2 Stars (Not Recommended)
The Crossing
The First United Methodist Church of Costa Mesa
Holy Family Cathedral
Mosaic (L.A.)

1 Star (Avoid)
Crystal Cathedral
Newsong Church

0 Stars (WARNING: Cult)
First Church of Christ, Scientist, Newport Beach
The Los Angeles Church of Christ - Orange County Region
Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church

For more information on our Ranking System or to learn more about what we believe:

How we Rank Churches
9 Marks of a Healthy Church
Creeds we agree with
Doctrine Statement

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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.

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 4/5
Preaching: Expository
Worship: Choruses
Service times: Sun. 8:45, 10:30 AM

Website Review
Site Usability: 3/5
Site Design: 1/5
Site Content: 1/5

Review: I attended a service at Hope Chapel in the summer of 2004. This church is not far from the hub of downtown Huntington Beach. When I walked in I was greeted by all different kinds of people from older men in suits to surfers in shorts and sandals.

The worship in song time was led by an older man on a guitar along with a drummer and some backup singers. We sang a number of older Christian worship choruses mixed with a couple of newer ones.

Apparently the Pastor of the church was gone that day and there was a guest speaker in his place to preach. The guest speaker was very passionate and preached from Mark 4:35-41. He magnified the authority of the Bible and the power of Jesus Christ as the God of the universe. Part of his sermon included a vivid acting out of the scene to help understand the mood of the story and the weight of the words that are spoken in this text. His application focused on encouraging the people to believe in the power and ability of Jesus to work in our lives and their problems.

After the service the college Pastor spoke with me for a little while and told me about a service they have on Friday nights called “Friday Night Live.” He said that worship band at that service plays “a much louder and rock and roll style set.” He also said, “all kinds of people come to this service and that they have been seeing many people getting saved.”

I was impressed with the guest speaker’s reverance for the Bible and the varience of cultures represented by the people present. Hope Chapel seems very evangelical and missional. However, it is part of the Foursquare denomination whose doctrinal statement lacks strong commitment to the convictions of the Reformation and thus I must give it a lower rating on Scriptural View and Beliefs. I spoke with the guest speaker after the service who communicated a mix of theological persuasion regarding Reformed doctrine, which he admitted is somewhat maverick in the Foursquare movement he is licensed in.

Church Review
Scriptural View: 1/5
Beliefs: 1/5
Community: 1/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Hymns
Service times: Sun. 9:25, 11:05 AM; 6:05 PM

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

Review: Crystal Cathedral is a church in the heart of Orange County. The building itself stands a few hundred feet high and is wall to wall glass. It sits adjacent to the shopping mall, theatre, skatepark known as “The Block.” When you drive up to the Crystal Cathedral the first thing you see is a full color digital marquee with rotating messages. After parking in a sea of cars on Sunday morning you walk up to this enormous building and pass by a graven image of the Pastor, Robert Schuller, made of bronze.

With the choir singing the camaras run, recording the next episode of “The Hour of Power.” “The Hour of Power” of is a nationally televised broadcast of the Crystal Cathedral Sunday morning service. The name is quite appropriate for it summarizes the teaching of Robert Schuller and his son who is the soon to be successor. The time of worship from the preaching of the Word is an amagalmation of new age self-help philosophy with Scripture quotations mixed in-between. Schuller teaches that sin is a problem that we can fix. The solution, the power of positive thinking through reading about Jesus’ life following his example. By going to the Crystal Cathedral or by watching the Hour of Power, you can learn how to throw off negativity and exercise your power to heal yourself.

I recommend that you avoid this church. The are part of the Reformed Church of America denomination but have moved away from core tenants of the gospel and their denomination. Tenants such as the sinfulness of man and salvation only through the justifying work of Christ on the cross in our place. God’s Word is not truly studied here and instead is syncretized with the new age worldview, where self is the highest order and prosperity is only a matter of your willpower.

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.

Church Review
Scriptural View: 0/5
Beliefs: 0/5
Community: 1/5

Website Review
Site Usabilility: 1/5
Site Design: 0/5
Site Content: 0/5

Summary:“Christian Science” is a cult started in the 1800’s by Mary Baker Eddy. They use the words ‘christian’ and ’scientist’. They are neither Christian nor scientists. I recommend you visit the Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry (CARM) to study this cult.

Not only does it deny the essential doctrines of Christianity, but it has completely reinterpreted the Bible. It drastically redefines the Bible’s culture and terminology and rips thousands of scriptures out of their historical and biblical contexts. The result is a non-Christian mixture of metaphysical and philosophical thoughts. Christian Science is so foreign to the Bible that, if it didn’t use words like Jesus, Trinity, Love, Grace, Sin, etc., you’d never suspect it had anything to do with the Bible at all. Additionally, the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which is the Christian Scientist’s mainstay of spiritual knowledge, reads with a rhythm of pseudo logical statements that has the tendency to dull the senses when read long enough. Is Christian Science Christian? Definitely not.

Above quote from CARM.

Christian Scientist churches are part of a cult. Their churches and reading rooms are not places of true worship and study of the Bible. I strongly recommend you avoid them.

Church Review
Scriptural View: 0/5
Beliefs: 0/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Hymns
Service times: 9:15 & 11:00 AM

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

Review: I attended a service in January of 2005. The service began with the singing of a number of songs out of a hymn book, led by a woman playing the piano. After the time of song there was a ceremony where a chalice was lit and everyone spoke out a phrase together which was printed in the bulletin. The chalice is intended to symbolize openess to all according to reason, justice, and compassion and the flame lit inside its bowl is intended to symbolize love. There was also a time of giving money. When the plates were passed around to put money in, everyone turned to each other and sang, “From you I receive, to you I give; Together we share, and from this we live.” After the offering there was a time of meditation. During this time, perhaps two or three minutes, most of the people closed their eyes and repeated the act of taking long breathes of air in and then exhaling.

The woman leader and minister of the church, Karen Stoyanoff. She was speaking about Martin Luther King Jr. Her sermon was titled “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life.” The three dimensions were, one: love yourself, two: love your neighbor, three: love the cosmos or life itself. She used excerpts of King’s sermons to illustrate each point but when she came to the third she said that King believed in God, but those of here do not accept the notion of a traditional “God” so she said what we need to do is love the cosmos. She defined the cosmos as that which unites us all to gather in an interconnected web of life.

WARNING! I recommend that you avoid any Unitarian Universalist church. They are a cult. The reject the existence of God, the deity of Christ, the authority of the Bible and a host of other things. (To read more about Universalists see Christian Apolgetics Research Ministry )

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.