Not a good church for those of color, involved in or apart of interracial relationships or marriages or needing healing or deliverance ministry for brokenness, broken home life or abuse, or financial troubles.
Great place if you don't have to worry about any of these problems and want a place to just get a good message and have your children play in a nice daycare on Sunday morning.
Nice place for teenagers and young adult to make friends with people who come from good families and homes and are stable in life.
I speak from experience having been in an interracial relationship and being abused while attending. Elders nor small group that I had attended for 2 years could prevent the abuse or support me going through it.
Senior pastor actually allowed my tithe to be returned (once he was made aware) after I demanded it back for egregious mishandling of what had happened to me during my divorce and leading up to it. Small group, of which my ex and I had attended for 2 years, actually ignored my problem when I tried to tell them what had happened and went back to eating ice cream at the ice cream social. (No joke, literally dismissed my problem in trite millennial fashion as if "that sucks" was enough).
In the end I turned down the tithe being returned as I rather they keep it so God can judge them at the right moment in time for their misdeeds and blantant unlove. Elder and his wife to whom I had been telling my husband was abusive and verbally assulting and controlling had the audacity to ask what they could have done better (ie, should we have confronted him?) And then said I was being bitter about all of this. This is also my fault since I trusted a white family who had no experience with life outside of their cultural understanding of race, culture, family dynamic or American experience.
This church is a wonderful community for those of or wanting a white American normative culture and international students/internationals wanting to observe more of this American dynamic or those who already come from a strong culture and just use the teaching resources here. This is also a good church if you're "normal", hipster, don't have extensive problems, already have an intact family and don't really need help with anything other than looking for like-minded friends. Social justice, outreach, and race/cultural dynamics are no where on the radar of these people.
And no... teaching English to the Somali refugee population that you have no understanding of, hosting a drive for single moms and dad where you blatantly use a black woman on your PPT announcement, or having a food pantry open on Tuesdays and Thursdays that isn't remotely close to the bus lines does not make you aware.
If anything, the leadership team should be trying to figure out how to bring on someone who is aware to help prevent such ignorance from continuing.
The preaching is solid for the most part...which is why Chris Martin and some of the other pastors earn this review two stars.
But we can't have a church that's carried by the pastors.
My advice is just to download the podcast and take whatever wisdom with you elsewhere.
This isn't a church, this is a social club for those who come from certain Christian backgrounds and want to live and socialize as if life isn't happening outside the church walls.
I believe by publicly posting such reviews and occurances, Christians and the public can hold people and institutions accountable instead of just burying the problem, and letting those who made such mistakes get away with it. It's not right that those who need the church and the love of Christ are the very ones being kept out by those who have no understanding of suffering or persecution.
BTW, it should also be said that many of the aforementioned reviews were not written by lay parishioners but by some who work for the church or are on the leadership team. I detest such read more