San Diego Church Reviews & Guide

Website: http://www.thirddaychurches.com

(House Churches Multiple Locations)

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Missional View: 4/5
Community: 5/5

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

Summary: The Third Day Church movement is a Charismatic house church movement that began here in San Diego and is now in eight countries. Here is an excerpt from their website about this movement:

On several occasions, history has provided the needed critical mass and the synergistic inertia to thrust the church into breaking out of its’ box and becoming the force in culture and society that God intended it to be. Today, the church, at the dawning of the 21st Century, has once again reached this “critical mass.” It’s something so big and so obvious that the winds of change demand we look hard at our forms and face the reality that a different church must provide a different response to a postmodern age. This Third Millennium (“a day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as a day,” 2 Peter 3:8; Psalm 90:4), or this “Third Day” requires a “Third Way” of doing and being the church, even a third Reformation.

There are a lot of things that this church is doing that San Diego Church Reviews agrees with. They are highly missional, they desire to remove traditions that impede on the advance of the gospel and the active involvement of all people in the church to ‘be the church’ not just attend one. There are two primary areas of concern about Third Day Churches; staying within the bounds of Scripture and the belief of modern day prophecy. The home churches offer a place that is “free for people to do whatever they want” which can be liberating but also can lead to unbiblical practice. Second, the belief that a person can prophesy and ’speak for God’ is dangerous. Third Day offers Schools of Prophecy to help train people to use this gift which we believe is no longer necessary with the completion of the Apostolic period. Unfortunately, to truly know how Third Day conducts themself, someone would need to attend their church for a season to ‘test the spirits’ that are being used.

A facinating house church movement. This Church is not recommended for everyone and we offer a word of caution for people to investigate their practices before joining.

Website: http://www.theresolved.com

(Pacific Beach)

Church Review
Scriptural View: 5/5
Missional View: 5/5
Community: 5/5

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

Summary: The Resolved is a recent church start in Pacific Beach. The Resolved is a perfect fit for Pacific Beach. The Pastors have a heart for this community and look PB. (Tattoos, surfers, riding cruisers around town) The Resolved mixes strong Biblical preaching with this heart for evangelism. After the service, many non-Christian co-workers, friends and neighbors join a BBQ they host and the Resolved community does a great job being the light to those who are lost. Theologically, The Resolved is rock solid. They currently are preaching through the book of Romans and go verse-by-verse to really draw out the meaning and application of the text. The Resolved is a church that is being started by Kaleo Church (read Kaleo’s church review) and there are many similarities between these churches.

A highly recommended church that holds to excellent theological and missiological positions.

Website: http://www.saintgregorythegreat.org/

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Missional View: 3/5
Community: 3/5

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

Summary: A Catholic community that professes to be more ‘orthodox’ than many Catholic Churches. Suggest you examine this chart of difference between Catholics & Protestants.

A large, active Catholic parish.

After learning more about the church from the Senior Pastor, their review has been updated: New San Diego First Assembly review.

Website: http://www.escondidourc.org/

Church Review
Scriptural View: 5/5
Missional View: 3/5
Community: 4/5

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

Summary: Escondido United Reformed Church (EURC) is an excellent place to learn about the Christian faith. The church has a high view of scripture and preaches solid, Biblical messages each week. If you seek or currently are in need to find a church that teaches ‘meat’ rather than watered-down messages, this is the place for you. As we find with most Reformed churches is that they often lack in the area of cultural engagement. Many in this church attend because they were raised in a Reformed environment so the learning curve is not always easy for new believers, but I trust they will pour into anyone who decides to attend the church. EURC is a great place for families. They put a strong emphasis on training the children in the Bible as well. (This church is Presbyterian for those concerned about Baby baptism.)

A recommended, Bible-based church.

Many people who come to this site seek a Catholic church. Our primary thrust is to review San Diego Churches that are Protestants, but we do Catholic churches on occassion as well as other off the beaten path faiths.

For those of you looking for a Catholic Church in San Diego, here is a (offsite) list of Catholic Parish/Mission Websites in the Diocese of San Diego. We also reviewed one Old Catholic church you can check out: St. Francis and St. Taricicus Old Catholic Church