Website: http://www.matthewshouse.com

(Located in Oceanside)

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 5/5
Preaching: None
Worship: Contemporary
Service Times: Wednesday 7 pm, Thursday 7pm

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

Review: Matthew’s House (MH) is part of a growing house Church movement. Each week in different homes people gather together to ‘be the church’. This Church is highly missional and they desire to reach the neighborhood where God placed them. As I spoke to one of the Pastors, Rick Horton (Who doesn’t like to be called pastor) he shared with me stories of people who were neighbors, friends and acquaintances who participated in this gathering and ended up being saved.

Pastor Horton explained, “Over and over again we saw people who would say something or pray and ask God into their life. No one told them how to do it or explained the process. They just realized they wanted what everyone else was talking about.” During my visit to MH I met a number of people who had been Christians 6 months to one or two years. This church is focused on living out the gospel.

MH does not have formal preaching. Each week they gather and talk about the things of God and share what is going on in their lives and then bring up scripture to apply to it. I am uncomfortable with the lack of expository preaching of God’s Word. This is too important of an element to not have in a healthy church. (see: 9 Marks of a Healthy Church)

After gathering with them and talking to a handful of people, it is clear they hold to the Nicene/Apostle’s Creed. They hold scripture to be the inerrant Word of God. There are many things that MH is doing that mainstream churches can learn from, particularly their high level of community and outreach.

A great church of outreach and evangelism to their neighborhood but it lacks strong Bible expository preaching.

Website: http://www.clairemontcov.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 3/5
Preaching: Topical
Worship: Traditional (9am), Contemporary (10:30am)

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

Summary: Clairemont Covenant Church is a family oriented church nestled amongst the homes in the Clairemont area. The church is made up primarily of families and people in the neighborhood. When I spoke with Pastor Greg White, he spoke about his church being a local church that is family oriented with a focus on children and youth. Each Wednesday night Clairemont Covenant opens its doors to all children up to High School age as a place to come, hang-out and listen to a teaching.

There are a lot of things Clairemont Covenant is doing well. They really do focus on being a member of their community. The church is filled with families and they have a closeness that is present. Surely they desire to live and share the gospel with those who do not know Christ. And for these and many other reasons it is a good church for people to be a part of.

I attended their service (September 2004) and was greeted by a large banner inviting me to ‘discover my purpose’. If you do not attend church or if you are a Christian who has just awoke out of a comma, this banner is part of a neatly packaged program called 40 Days of Purpose. The 40 Days of Purpose by author/pastor Rick Warren has swept through the broad evangelical nation with a force to place it on the NY Times Bestseller and elevate Rick Warren to guru status.

While I have seen this program actually help churches who are fairly weak in their preaching, for the most part I am not a huge fan of these pre-packaged formula’s to doing church. Rather than borrowing from Rick Warren I would like to see Pastors grow in their own study and presentation of the word to their congregation. I believe the job of the pastor is to communicate God’s word in a manner and language that the congregation understands and considers the richness of the scripture as it is examined and applied to their lives.

I believe that this church is preaching the gospel but from my experience (I was raised in a Covenant Church) they do not dive into the full richness of the text and wrestle with issues that have serious implications. Too many areas are avoided and because of this I can only give a mild recommendation.

Clairemont Covenant Church preaches/teaches the gospel but is fairly light on their preaching style.

Website: http://www.sandiegocbc.org

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

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

Summary: Community Bible Church (CBC) has a good foundational belief in Scripture and God. In their what they believe section most of what they write is both profitable and accurate for both a believer and unbeliever to consider. On salvational issues we are in agreement and so this church is comprised of brothers and sisters in the Lord. There are a few beliefs that they hold to that I believe to be inaccurate. These errors of doctrine should be a caution for the church seeker.

First, an error that many churches make, is taking a firm stance on ‘End Times’ issues. It is sad to see so many churches read through Revelation as a book of clues to try to figure out the symbolic language and interpret all of the world’s events through this filter. CBC spells out their beliefs on Dispensationalism (the Rapture, Tribulation, etc.), or as most people now view it the ‘Left Behind’ ideas brought by Tim Lahaye. As a church we should be firm in areas we are sure of, such as the need for Jesus Christ as our savior, but quiet on areas we are not certain and the end times is one of these issues. A disproportionate amount of time is being spent in the church devoted to the sensational tribulation ideas. And quite frankly, we don’t know these things and we will never know them.

Secondly, the book of the month is a book called, “Treasure Principle”, by Randy C. Alcorn. The review on their site tells us, “God has entrusted His wealth to us and called upon us to manage and invest His money. This is in everyone’s best interests, including our own.” I read one critique on the book that a reader posted at Amazon.com saying ,”Jesus never said that you can “invest” your worldly money in the church to receive rewards in heaven.” Too often American churches are focused on what we should receive as treasures, how God should bless us. (Just consider the Prayer of Jabez which made God a giant piñata.) Our country does have more wealth than we need and we should be stewards of this, including distributing it to the needs of the church worldwide.

Overall CBC looks to be a mainstream church with an evangelical position. With that said I can recommend this church but I would urge you to examine the above ideas and others that are often being taught by churches today. Far too often the average ‘christian’ is ignorant of scripture and easily swallow the concepts of people like Tim Lahaye who spend way too much time emphasizing areas away from the good news message of Jesus Christ and our mission as a church to communicate this to our world.

CBC preaches/teaches core salvational beliefs but I can’t strongly recommend them.

Website: http://www.floodsandiego.com

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

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

Summary: The Flood is the ‘gen-x’ service at College Avenue Baptist Church. It offers alternative forms of worship, as their website states: “a word of warning about our concert ambiance . . . the music’s loud-very loud-and the lights are off!” I have attended the Flood service and personally I enjoy the worship but if you’re not expecting loud, concert style worship you’ll be in for a shock.

From my visits and from the website, The Flood is a typical ministry seeking to attract young college students. It offers entertaining style worship along with sermons that offer a good basics message. The Flood preaches topical messages that are fitting for young Christians. I spoke to a friend who recently attended a service (August 2004) and she put it well, “it isn’t so much what they say, it’s what they don’t say”. In other words, the messages are true but they leave so much more out that needs to be taught to Christians. The Flood is a good outreach to target students as they attend college but along with other college-aimed ministries/churches each year new students and hopefully converts are blessed by coming to the Flood, but at some point in a person’s faith they may need to move beyond what the Flood can offer. Some of this may be overcome if a person really plugs in to additional small group, personal study and mentoring opportunities at this Church. Also part of what I believe is a lacking at the Flood involves their Theological teaching which is similiar to my concerns with Calvary-style churches.

I just spoke to a friend who visted the 9pm service (Nov 14th) where the had an interpretive dance. Two people danced together to illustrate our relationship with God. Hmmm? Relevance gone too far?

A good church to come and learn the basics and participate in concert-style worship for younger and new Christians.

Website: http://www.therocksandiego.org

Church Review
Scriptural View: 3/5 (Fairly solid.)
Beliefs: 3/5 (Solid but light.)
Community: 4/5 (From the website small groups, pictures, events listed, forums, classifieds, etc.)

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

Summary: In addition to looking through the Rock’s website I’ve had the chance to attend the Rock on a couple of occassions. Overall, the Rock is a bible-believing, Christ-centered church who recognize that all people need Jesus in order to be reconciled to God. They are a great church for newbie christians and they seem to have a heart for the lost. This is a good church for a believer to attend.

My only ‘critiques’ would be that their messages/sermons are fairly light. From my visiting and even if you look on the website, there are many biblical truths that are either not communicated or avoided. Being located on a college campus each year new students and hopefully converts are blessed by coming to the Rock, but at some point in a person’s faith they may need to move beyond what the Rock can offer. Secondly, I’m not a big fan that so much attention is centered on Miles McPherson. There is the Miles McPherson Page, the Miles Ahead Ministry, they even have bought google ads and in the space to enter a description they put “Led by Pastor Miles McPherson” as their content. I believe a church should not focus so much on one man, except for Jesus Christ our Lord.

(I’d encourage you to read the comments by the Webmaster from The Rock Church.)

A good bible-believing church that preaches Christ but doesn’t always dig into the deeper issues of faith.

Website: http://www.farsinet.com/iccsd/

Church Review
Scriptural View: 4/5 (Right on, from the site: “The Bible is fully and completely inspired, infallible, and inerrant Word of God.”)
Beliefs: 3/5
Community: 3/5 (Seems to be good from website.)

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

Summary: The site is not the best quality. It has scrolling marquee’s and looks to be designed by an amateur. Some of the content talks about Christmas and New Years, considering it’s April, this site isn’t all that current. Also, part of the content is in an Farsi language. But enough about the site design….on to the important things:

After the two first reviews, I was starting to become frustrated at the churches in Google’s top 10. It was refreshing to get to this site. Not only are they doctrinally sound, they clearly have a heart for evangelism and living out their beliefs. In America where Iranians are often vilified it is awesome to see a group who love God and are commited to truth. What about the Middle East conflict? They see it in proper terms, communicating Jews need to accept Christ as their Lord and Savior. All in all check out this site, it’s sermons and their commitment to living out the gospel…

From what is on their site, I recommend this church. Particularly if Farsi language is your first language..