Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Village Community Presbyterian

It was perhaps odd to see people dressed in their Sunday finery sitting on folding chairs in the pale gray utilitarian confines of a fellowship hall. But I learned quickly that the oddness would not endure. Next Sunday, on Easter, the congregation would take its seats for the 8:45 and 10:30 services in the new, just-finished sanctuary across the courtyard.

The oddness that would endure provided the theme for the service: the oddness of being a Christian. The oddness of people in a well-to-do 21st-century American suburb crying out during the call to worship, “Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your King comes to you”; of those same people apologizing for “turning to gods of our own making and following pathways of our own choosing”; of choir and congregation thundering forth a song lyric full of contradiction:

“Ride on, ride in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die/ Bow Your meek head to mortal pain, then take, O Christ, Your power and reign.”

Again, it was perhaps odd to hear Reverend Scott Mitchell acknowledge in prayer that his congregation, successful by most worldly standards, “must stand in opposition to the world’s ways.” To hear him ask for courage “to stand up for Jesus Christ.... To minister to the outcast and the desperate. To work for that very same supernatural peace that everyone everywhere longs to have — that can only come from You. Help us not to scatter and leave You alone. May we take courage, remembering that You have conquered the world.”

How do we know that Jesus has conquered the world? Because He said so, in the reading taken from John’s Gospel: “In the world, you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

Reverend Jack Baca’s sermon asked the obvious question: if Jesus has conquered the world, why is courage necessary for Christians? “Normally,” he said, “the focus on Palm Sunday is on that very joyful moment in Jesus’ life when he came into Jerusalem, welcomed by the cheers of the crowds.... But if you skip from Palm Sunday straight over to Easter — which so many of us want to do — we miss one of the most crucial elements of the whole story about Jesus.... My fundamental premise and promise to you throughout Lent has been that following Jesus is about joy. But what about Jesus’...torture and excruciating death? We have said that the joyful life of following Jesus is about seeing Jesus for who He is, and learning the truth from Jesus, and loving each other as Jesus loves us, and making sure that we walk in the power of the spirit of Jesus. But we have to talk about suffering, and even agony, as we are learning about the joy way.”

Baca talked about the suffering of the early Christians, persecuted by Jews and Romans and “the general public, who looked at them as strange people who followed a crucified Savior, who practiced weird rituals of eating His body and drinking His blood, who went against the flow of normal culture. Serving Jesus, he said, was serving “someone whose very life is an indictment of the world’s values and twisted systems and the broken promises of the empty gods of this world.”

Besides the particular sufferings that arise from following Jesus, he added, Christians also share in the sufferings of “a fallen world...full of disease and hunger and war, where families fight and children are abused. It’s a world filled with pain. Every one of you has brought the pain of your life and the pain of the world into this place of worship today. We are captive to a world of sin and brokenness. Every human being — made for living in perfection — experiences pain because we are alien citizens in this place that was meant to be our home.” In short, if Christians are odd, it’s because the world was odd first, and Christ came to address that oddness.

Sponsored
Sponsored

As Baca said, “We follow a savior who conquers the suffering...by remaking the world in Himself, in His resurrection, and then offering the power of His resurrection to any who would receive it.” This, he said, “instills a deep joy in us, in spite of the pain and troubles. It’s not the way of denial, or of ease. But whether your life today is a proud parade or an agonizing crawl, take courage because Jesus — and we — conquered the world.”

And choir and congregation rose up again in song: “Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God! All the vain things that charm me most/ I sacrifice them to His blood.”

What happens when we die?

“I believe the good Lord takes us to be with Him in heaven,” said Baca.

Place

Village Presbyterian Church

6225 Paseo Delicias, Rancho Santa Fe




  • Denomination
    : Presbyterian Church USA
  • Address: 6225 Paseo Delicias, Rancho Santa Fe, 858-756-2441
  • Founded locally: 1956
  • Senior pastor: Jack W. Baca
  • Congregation size: 1200
  • Staff size: 45 (including school)
  • Sunday school enrollment: 125
  • Annual budget: $1.8 million
  • Weekly giving: $34,000
  • Singles program: no
  • Dress: mostly formal
  • Diversity: mostly Caucasian, some Asian
  • Sunday worship: 8:45 a.m. (contemporary), 10 a.m. (traditional)
  • Length of reviewed service: 1 hour, 10 minutes
  • Website: villagechurch.org
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Didja know I did the first American feature on Jimi Hendrix?

Richard Meltzer goes through the Germs, Blue Oyster Cult, Ray Charles, Elvis, Lavender Hill Mob

It was perhaps odd to see people dressed in their Sunday finery sitting on folding chairs in the pale gray utilitarian confines of a fellowship hall. But I learned quickly that the oddness would not endure. Next Sunday, on Easter, the congregation would take its seats for the 8:45 and 10:30 services in the new, just-finished sanctuary across the courtyard.

The oddness that would endure provided the theme for the service: the oddness of being a Christian. The oddness of people in a well-to-do 21st-century American suburb crying out during the call to worship, “Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your King comes to you”; of those same people apologizing for “turning to gods of our own making and following pathways of our own choosing”; of choir and congregation thundering forth a song lyric full of contradiction:

“Ride on, ride in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die/ Bow Your meek head to mortal pain, then take, O Christ, Your power and reign.”

Again, it was perhaps odd to hear Reverend Scott Mitchell acknowledge in prayer that his congregation, successful by most worldly standards, “must stand in opposition to the world’s ways.” To hear him ask for courage “to stand up for Jesus Christ.... To minister to the outcast and the desperate. To work for that very same supernatural peace that everyone everywhere longs to have — that can only come from You. Help us not to scatter and leave You alone. May we take courage, remembering that You have conquered the world.”

How do we know that Jesus has conquered the world? Because He said so, in the reading taken from John’s Gospel: “In the world, you face persecution. But take courage; I have conquered the world!”

Reverend Jack Baca’s sermon asked the obvious question: if Jesus has conquered the world, why is courage necessary for Christians? “Normally,” he said, “the focus on Palm Sunday is on that very joyful moment in Jesus’ life when he came into Jerusalem, welcomed by the cheers of the crowds.... But if you skip from Palm Sunday straight over to Easter — which so many of us want to do — we miss one of the most crucial elements of the whole story about Jesus.... My fundamental premise and promise to you throughout Lent has been that following Jesus is about joy. But what about Jesus’...torture and excruciating death? We have said that the joyful life of following Jesus is about seeing Jesus for who He is, and learning the truth from Jesus, and loving each other as Jesus loves us, and making sure that we walk in the power of the spirit of Jesus. But we have to talk about suffering, and even agony, as we are learning about the joy way.”

Baca talked about the suffering of the early Christians, persecuted by Jews and Romans and “the general public, who looked at them as strange people who followed a crucified Savior, who practiced weird rituals of eating His body and drinking His blood, who went against the flow of normal culture. Serving Jesus, he said, was serving “someone whose very life is an indictment of the world’s values and twisted systems and the broken promises of the empty gods of this world.”

Besides the particular sufferings that arise from following Jesus, he added, Christians also share in the sufferings of “a fallen world...full of disease and hunger and war, where families fight and children are abused. It’s a world filled with pain. Every one of you has brought the pain of your life and the pain of the world into this place of worship today. We are captive to a world of sin and brokenness. Every human being — made for living in perfection — experiences pain because we are alien citizens in this place that was meant to be our home.” In short, if Christians are odd, it’s because the world was odd first, and Christ came to address that oddness.

Sponsored
Sponsored

As Baca said, “We follow a savior who conquers the suffering...by remaking the world in Himself, in His resurrection, and then offering the power of His resurrection to any who would receive it.” This, he said, “instills a deep joy in us, in spite of the pain and troubles. It’s not the way of denial, or of ease. But whether your life today is a proud parade or an agonizing crawl, take courage because Jesus — and we — conquered the world.”

And choir and congregation rose up again in song: “Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast, save in the death of Christ, my God! All the vain things that charm me most/ I sacrifice them to His blood.”

What happens when we die?

“I believe the good Lord takes us to be with Him in heaven,” said Baca.

Place

Village Presbyterian Church

6225 Paseo Delicias, Rancho Santa Fe




  • Denomination
    : Presbyterian Church USA
  • Address: 6225 Paseo Delicias, Rancho Santa Fe, 858-756-2441
  • Founded locally: 1956
  • Senior pastor: Jack W. Baca
  • Congregation size: 1200
  • Staff size: 45 (including school)
  • Sunday school enrollment: 125
  • Annual budget: $1.8 million
  • Weekly giving: $34,000
  • Singles program: no
  • Dress: mostly formal
  • Diversity: mostly Caucasian, some Asian
  • Sunday worship: 8:45 a.m. (contemporary), 10 a.m. (traditional)
  • Length of reviewed service: 1 hour, 10 minutes
  • Website: villagechurch.org
Comments
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

San Diego Reader 2024 Music & Arts Issue

Favorite fakers: Baby Bushka, Fleetwood Max, Electric Waste Band, Oceans, Geezer – plus upcoming tribute schedule
Next Article

Flowering pear trees in Kensington not that nice

Empty dirt plots in front of Ken Cinema
Comments
Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.