Anchor Gaslamp (Downtown San Diego)
First Baptist Coronado (Coronado)
The Fields Church (Carlsbad)
Kaleo Church (Mission Valley, SDSU, El Cajon)
Westview Church (North County/Carmel Mountain)
The Resolved Church (Bay Park)
Ethnos Church (La Jolla)
Faith Bible Church (Murrieta)
Harbor Presbyterian (Multiple)

Are we missing other highly recommended churches? Please let us know by adding a comment to this post. Our desire is to highly recommend churches that have a passion for Jesus Christ, worship God in spirit and truth, desire to live out the gospel and live a life of mission to the community around them. You can learn more about how we rank using the menu on the side.

Church Review
Theology: 5/5
Mission: 5/5
Community: 5/5
Worship: 4/5

Summary: Anchor Gaslamp is a church that is intentional about reaching downtown San Diego.  From it’s inception, the community builds in numerous missions, service projects and ways to express God’s love to the Greater San Diego area.  Sermons are both relevant and filled with grace.  It’s a younger community but all are welcome.  Throughout the week, people gather in missional communities to be an expression of God’s people where they live.  They started their first missional community in 2007. During this time the group met in the Downtown San Diego area, in locations which varied from restaurants to hotels to coffee houses & pubs until its first Sunday Gathering in a nightclub on Easter Sunday, 2008.  Since that time Anchor Gaslamp has steadily grown into a loving community that is motivated by living out the gospel message and watching it slowly change their city for the better. You’ll find them in various locations throughout the week, meeting in public, laughing & loving one another, using their hands to work change in the lives of homeless teens & orphans, raising awareness of world causes, and being the church.

For those looking for a great church in downtown San Diego, this church is highly recommended...

Church Review
Theology: 5/5
Mission: 5/5
Community: 5/5
Worship: 4/5

Summary:  First Baptist Church Coronado is a church nestled into a neighborhood near 4th and C on Coronado Island.  The church is an amazing community of people who gather together to worship God.  Here you will find a diverse group of residents and military families.  With a desire to preach the good news of Jesus, the message preached was part of an ongoing series in the book of Romans.  The people welcomed us and were extremely hospitable.  As they state on their website, “Our existence is because of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and because of this we are committed to continually learning more about the Gospel, being changed by the Gospel, & living lives that glorify God by the power of the Gospel.”  The church desires to love and reach the whole island with the good news.  

Their Sunday gathering is at 10 am at 453 C Ave in Coronado, CA.

 For those looking for a great church in Coronado, this church is highly recommended...

Westview began meeting as a Gospel Community group in Jesse’s home in Carmel Mountain and launched a Sunday evening service which meets in the Taiwanese Lutheran Church in Rancho Penasquitos at 5:00 each week. Though Westview church places a priority on the corporate gathering of God’s people on Sunday where they preach exegetically through books of the Bible, they also see the great importance of being in community on mission throughout the week in Gospel Communities. These communities are the church in smaller gatherings (two or three families) which seek to serve the purpose of building each other up with the gospel in a more intimate setting and being on mission to our individual neighborhoods and regions. Westview also meets in even smaller Discipleship and Accountability groups which are three or four individuals meeting together to get into the nitty gritty of how the gospel applies to their every day lives on a more personal level.

Their website (westviewchurch.com) is very easy to navigate, and the Sunday sermon is uploaded to the website and iTunes podcast every week. The website also includes a church social networking site called cobblestone where the church can coordinate events, share prayer requests, and connect with each other.

(Chula Vista)

Church Review
Theology: 5/5
Mission: 5/5
Community: 5/5
Worship: 2/5

Summary:Crossroads Church is located in the heart of historic downtown Chula Vista. This church is a true reflection of the community around them. Here you will find a diverse mix of race, age and financial status. With a mission to “lead people to and through a life changing relationship with Jesus and his family”, this church places a high emphasis on God’s grace and living in response to that. Adamantly rejecting moralism, Crossroads goal is to be Christ-centered and Gospel-centered in everything.

Pastor Matt Ortiz preaches verse-by-verse through both Old and New Testaments. There are also a variety of community groups that meet throughout the week. Impacting the community of the South Bay with the gospel of grace is the mission of everything the church does.

For those looking for a church in the South Bay that is strong both in doctrine and practice, this church is highly recommended..

Church Review
Theology: 2/5
Mission: 2/5
Community: 2/5
Worship: 2/5

Summary: The Twelve Tribes of Israel believes they are the only ‘true’ disciples of Christ. All other Christians are no different than atheists, Buddhists or Muslims. In order for a person to be saved, they need to move into one of their communities, give up all their possessions to the community as well as agree (with no room for differing opinions) to their interpretation of scripture. We see this as legalism, works-based faith and as an error to the Christian faith.

Sadly, what caused the Twelve Tribes to ‘react’ to this extreme is true. They see that most Christians today are unwilling to live out the faith as Christ called them to. This faith includes love for neighbor, self-sacrifice and service to a common goal in the Kingdom of God.

Too much legalism and extreme interpretations for us to recommend anyone join the group.

Church Review
Theology: 2/5
Mission: 2/5
Community: 3/5
Worship: 2/5

Summary: All Souls’ Episcopal Church has a progressive interpretation of scripture. Their interpretations of issues (abortion, homosexuality, etc.) are not rooted in the Bible but have changed because the culture has changed. The gospel message has become a social gospel that leads them to do many good things, but they do not teach that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. The result is Christianity becomes more of a philosophy rather than a belief that God is not silent and has, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, communicated to us through the Bible.

A church not rooted in orthodoxy. We do not recommend people attend this church.

Church Review
Theology: 5/5
Mission: 4/5
Community: 4/5
Worship: 3/5

Summary: San Diego Reformed Church is a solid church for people to consider. The service I attended had a guest preacher, who did an excellent job. Their worship style was more hymnal-based singing and traditional in flavor. There seems to be a transition at this church toward a more missional mindset to reach out the the community around them. (Being missional is often a challenge in Reformed churches.) The service had a large number of older (60 to 80 year old) people but there were several families as well.

A good church that teaches the Scripture and desires to reach out to their community. We recommend this church.

Encinitas

Church Review
Theology: 4/5
Mission: 4/5
Community: 4/5
Worship: 3/5

Summary: The service I attended was called a ‘mini-service’ at 8:45am (their main service is at 10am) for people who server. Doug Baker did a great job preaching through the word and tying in the history and context of the passage. Faith Community is in the process of building a church campus and is raising money to do this. At the present time, they meet in a school. There were many things I liked about my experience at the church and based on the interaction and conversations, I would recommend this as a place for people to attend. (Their website is another subject though, clicking on ‘Calendar of Events’ almost shut my computer down.)

A solid church that taught from the scripture and has a heart to reach the community around them. We recommend this church.

Church Review
Theology: 2/5
Mission: 2/5
Community: 3/5
Worship: 3/5

Summary: I attended Sonrise Community Church’s Unite service. An evening ‘postmodern’ service for people aged 18-30 years old. What struck me the most at this service was the preaching. In the service I attended, the pastor spent most of the time speaking about himself. He talked about his job as a news anchor, how he now gets paid well to work part time at Channel 8. He talked about how he “closed the deal” in evangelizing a Budhhist. (I’m glad he is evangelizing but part of this should be done in love not to ‘close the deal’.) Over half the message with about him. In fact, he even shared a story about how his wife had to elbow him five times when they had guests over because he was always speaking about himself. He confessed he could “talk about myself for hours”. I’ve got to be honest, this really angered me. Here were a group of 18-30 years-old who were being preached a non-Bible centered message. Just because this guy was a news anchor doesn’t mean he’s qualified to preach at a church. I pray their other services are radically different but even so, the ‘Senior Pastor’ was the person who hired Pastor Miller. I understand a pastor can have an “off night” but to preach the message he delivered, too much is left in doubt for us to recommend this church.
We do not recommend this church because of the low quality of preaching.