San Diego Church Reviews & Guide

Website: http://www.vertexcoronado.com/

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Beliefs: 4/5
Community: 3/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Band
Service times: 6pm

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

“We’ve tried a number of ways to reach out to people in the community. We’ve tried TV, parades, door knocking, all of this didn’t work. Creating the additional service is the best outreach we’ve ever done” Pastor Larry Hamblen said. First Baptist Church of Coronado calls the new service, “The Vertex.”

The Vertex launched one year ago as an evening service, catering to a younger audience. “A couple of people wanted to make the church more exciting. They wanted to have a service with a higher energy and more upbeat music,” Pastor Hamblen told me. Hamblen described the service as having a “postmodern flavor”.

Wedged between homes on Coronado Island, First Baptist Church’s steeple rises a story above the white building. Inside, ten candles in sconces hang on the walls. The candle glow provides a faint light to the room. Thin stained glass windows, black from the night, line one wall. The small sanctuary houses nine rows of cushioned pews. A cross, six feet in height, hangs on the front wall. Nearby, a large screen displays artistic images along with the words to the songs.

The 38 congregants at the service were primarily college-aged students. Common attire was a PLNU sweatshirt, jeans, T-shirt and an occasional baseball hat turned backwards. I asked Taylor Dwyer, the lead guitarist and vocalist in the band, about who attends the service. “Half of the people live on the island. They either have been involved with the church or heard about it when we posted door-hangers in the neighborhood. The other half are friends of ours from Point Loma Nazarene College.” Dwyer and the entire band graduated from PLNU last spring.

The service began with a welcome from Dwyer. Through the service, the band performed nine songs. The volume of the music filled the small sanctuary as a drummer, keyboardist, bass guitar, electric guitar and acoustic guitar accompanied the singing. Later, Pastor Hamblen told me they had purchased a new sound system for the evening service.

Dwyer classified the band’s sound as “a little harder than Dave Matthews Band. We play a lot of songs from the Passion Movement and the Vineyard, but we would like to write our own tunes.” The songs for the evening included Trading My Sorrows, Blessed Be Your Name, Hear Our Praises, Lord Most High, You Alone and How Great is Your Love.

The keyboardist from the band, Tim Gaines, preached the sermon. Gaines based his message on the gospel of John, chapter eleven. This chapter tells the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. The shortest verse in the Bible is this chapter: “Jesus wept.” Gaines connected the story to the congregation’s life by saying, “I believe Jesus weeps when we come to him without faith, when we give up on our brothers who are spiritually dead. Just like in the story of Lazarus when we see people give up on Lazarus who is physically dead. The people didn’t have faith that Jesus would raise him from the dead. I believe that is why Jesus wept.”

After service, Gaines told me he preaches every four to five weeks. Gaines studied philosophy and theology at the undergraduate level at PLNU. He is in graduate school and would like to teach theology at the college level. “Theology is bigger than anything that I know. It’s so much bigger than me. I love being caught up in something bigger than me,” Gaines said. “I like how theology influences a church to live and do local ministry.”

Philosophy comes to play into his preaching. “You can’t take theology and philosophy apart. Theology has, over the last 1,000 years, basically followed philosophy. Philosophers and theologians have been in conversation and so you can’t really study one without studying the other. You have to have both together.”

The Vertex is a service reaching the postmodern generation with a band, candles, and dark lighting.

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Website: http://www.lamesaumc.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 2/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Hymns
Service Times: 8:30am, 11am

Website Review
Site Usability: 2/5
Site Design: 1/5
Site Content: 1/5

Review: I attended a service in October 2004. Service began with seven hand bell players ringing out a hymn, as the congregation observed silently. Reverend Fanestil invited the children up for a short story, based on a rose he pulled out of a mystery box. Following this, was a prayer, a testimony and a reading from scripture. Next, Reverend Fanestil walked to the pulpit to preach.

“All human beings live by stories. It’s a matter of which stories you live by. Christians have to rely on the stories and images; these are the stuff of which this faith is made.”

After service, Reverend Fanestil spoke with me about the Christian faith and the Bible’s stories. “The Bible is much more like a bookshelf than a single book. As reading the Bible as a bookshelf instead of a single book, I end up feeling like the Bible speaks with many voices. These voices challenge me and I am forced to struggle with them. It isn’t always if the Bible says it, I believe it. I believe that is an unhelpful way to read the Bible.”

“(The Bible) is inspired by God, but I don’t believe it is inerrant,” Fanestil explained. “The gospel of John was written at the end of the first century, when the church was in great conflict with the Jews. There is an anti-Jewish polemic to the New Testament that needs to be put in its historical context.”

I asked Reverend Fanestil how his view of scripture affects his stance on the controversy regarding homosexuality within the United Methodist Denomination. “There is a split over the issue of homosexuality. A majority of (United Methodists) nationwide adhere to a traditional stance that homosexuality is a sin. They believe we should love the sinner but hate the sin. A majority of people at our church, myself including, believe homosexuality is an orientation for a vast majority of people that is given by nature. And I’ve preached that. The Bible doesn’t always speak with a single voice. We need to treat the words of scripture in ways that demands some tension and complexity.”

I asked Reverend Fanestil how does someone determine what is true in the Bible. “That’s what we all do. We have to choose (what we want to believe). I am very comfortable with saying I don’t know about a lot of things.”

“I believe Jesus is the way, I’ve experienced that in my life. I don’t feel called to pass judgment on the world’s other religions. I don’t feel qualified to pretend to know God’s minds on the worlds other great religions traditions. I certainly am reluctant to conclude that all folks who belong to other religious traditions are all destined for some state of eternal damnation. It doesn’t ring true with the spirit of the Jesus I know.”

The bottom line is La Mesa First United Methodist does not preach that Scripture is true. Therefore, we cannot recommend this church.

Website: http://www.oldcatholic.com/francis.html

Church Review
Scriptural View: 2/5
Beliefs: 2/5
Community: 2/5
Preaching: Liturgical
Worship: None
Service Times: 4pm

Website Review
Site Usability: 3/5
Site Design: 1/5
Site Content: 4/5

Review: I must confess, I am not a Catholic and do not agree with much of their doctrine. For the Catholic Church to believe their traditions (the Magisterium, Papal Infalability) can be equal to God’s Word is the crux of the problem. There are many things I cannot see in the Bible that are held by the Catholic Church. These include Transubstantiation, Purgatory, Indulgences, Papal Infallibility, the Immaculate Conception of Mary, Venial and Mortal Sins, and a host of others. The Protestant Church cites the Bible alone as the source of doctrinal knowledge. The Catholic church, on the other hand, cites the Bible and Tradition. Consider the following:

“. . .the Church, to whom the transmission and interpretation of Revelation is entrusted, ‘does not derive her certainty about all revealed truths from the holy Scriptures alone. Both Scripture and Tradition must be accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence’.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 82.)

Apparently, it is Tradition that is the source of doctrines which are clearly not taught in the Bible but which the Catholic Church still says are implicit within its text and elucidated through Apostolic Tradition. The issue is whether or not these teachings of the Roman Catholic Church are credible. For more information on the Roman Catholic Church (as opposed to the Old Catholic Church) please visit Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry.

St. Francis and St. Taricicus as an Old Catholic Church does dispel some of the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church. The Old Catholic Church separated from the Roman Catholic Church over religious politics after the Reformation.

I spoke to Father Kwasek about issues like Papal Infallibility and the Immaculate Conception. These are issues that differentiate the Old Catholic Church from the Roman Catholic Church. Yet when I spoke to Father Kwasek he did not pick a side, saying, “Even with these differences, they can easily be resolved and bring both Churches into communion with each other. I can accept (the Papal Infallibility) because the Roman, Protestant and Orthodox theologians have been going back and forth on this issue for 2,000 years with no clear outcome. In the meantime, citing Mark Twain, ‘I can’t prove nor disprove these claims’, so I’ll go along with them just in case. As for Mary, who would want to upset a Jewish mother in heaven in the first place? There was a time when only Catholics believed in the Immaculate Conception. Now it seems today that Americans believe they are all immaculately conceived, considering that people seem to take less and less responsibility for their failings and blame them on their upbringing and grade B milk they drank.”

I asked Father Kwasek what happens to people after they die. He answered, “In Hebrews it tells us, ‘It is appointed a person once to die, and after this comes judgment’. There are three places people go after they die. The first is heaven, with God, for those who believe in Jesus. It is because Jesus is God and through his redemption we have an antidote (to sin). The second place people go is purgatory. When people are going through the judgment for their sin after death, there will be a temporary period of time of sorrow. This period may be short or it may be thousands of years. This is a period of purging. Lastly, God sends no one to hell. God gives everyone 70 years to figure out that He loves them and He is God. Hell is for those who decide to rebel and reject God.”

For many of my friends that were Catholic, religion became nothing more than traditions. I attended Catholic school for many years growing up, and most of my friends would say they are Catholic not Christian. After a 10-year High School reunion I asked my friend, “Do you believe Jesus was literally God?” He replied that Christ lived the example life for us but was not God. This was a typical belief. In all fairness, I have met many wonderful Catholics who are evangelical Christians. In my neighborhood I am friends with a Catholic who also leads a Young Life. His desire is to bring the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost world.

From my conversation with Father Kwasek it appeared he wanted to gather those who are lost to Jesus Christ. “There are two groups of people who attend Old Catholic Churches. The first are those who are not happy with the Roman Catholic Church and the second group of people were not attending any church previously,” Father Jerome Kwasek commented.

St. Francis and St. Taricicus is a good church for Catholic followers, but because of the many disagreements I have with the Catholic Church, I cannot recommend this for Evangelical Protestants.