My feelings about Next City Church are complicated, and that is exactly why this review is…read moredifficult to write.
There are genuinely wonderful people in this congregation. Warm people. Loving people. People who encouraged me, welcomed me, and treated me with real kindness. I do not regret meeting them, and I will not pretend that every part of my experience was negative simply because I am disappointed now.
The church also supports missions around the world and raises money for charitable work. The pastor has always been kind to me in person. I want to make that clear because this is not about inventing villains. It is about telling the truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable.
My problem is with the religious culture promoted by the leadership.
During my time at Next City Church, I repeatedly encountered an attitude that felt cliquish, insular, and dismissive toward anyone whose beliefs fell outside its particular evangelical framework. That included other religions, other Christian traditions, and Catholicism in particular.
I personally heard one pastor refer to Catholics as "Pharisees."
That comment stayed with me because it revealed something deeper than a simple doctrinal disagreement. A pastor has every right to disagree with Catholic teaching. What he should not expect to do without being challenged is reduce an entire Christian tradition and millions of believers to a cheap insult while acting as though his own small theological circle has a monopoly on truth.
Here is the irony: the criticism of Catholicism did not drive me away from it. It made me curious.
I decided to investigate Catholicism for myself instead of accepting someone else's caricature. What I found was not the hollow, legalistic religion I had been warned about. I found extraordinary historical, theological, intellectual, liturgical, and spiritual depth. I found a faith rooted in centuries of serious thought, worship, sacrifice, tradition, and reflection. I am now participating in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.
And I will be completely honest: my Catholic experience has been better by orders of magnitude.
The contrast is not subtle. It is enormous.
I have found richer worship, a deeper connection to Christian history, a serious sacramental life, greater room for reflection and difficult questions, and a broader ecumenical spirit. I have encountered far more willingness to recognize sincerity, truth, and human dignity beyond one narrow theological boundary.
I did not leave Next City Church because the congregation lacked good people. The congregation contains some of the kindest and most wonderful people I have had the pleasure of meeting.
I became disillusioned because the leadership's religious worldview felt smaller than the hearts of the people it was supposed to guide.
Charitable work matters. Personal kindness matters. Missions matter. But none of those things erase the intolerance, condescension, and dismissive attitudes I encountered toward Catholicism, other Christian traditions, and religions outside evangelical Christianity.
My one-star rating is based on that painful contradiction: a congregation capable of tremendous warmth and a church involved in meaningful charitable work, but a leadership culture that I experienced as cliquish, religiously insular, and far too comfortable passing judgment on spiritual traditions it did not appear willing to understand.