Here's something you might be interested in.
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
El Cajon Wesleyan Church
Steve Forsythe
Membership: 300 (and 130 Chaldean)
Pastor: Steve Forsythe
Age: 51
Born: Cape May, NJ
Formation: New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, NJ; Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena
Years Ordained: 26
San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermon?
Pastor Steve Forsythe: About 10 to 20 hours. Way before the sermons are written, I make sure to take time to pray and focus on some of the needs within the church, the things people are struggling with and dealing with. The second thing I do is a study of a book of the Bible. Right now, for instance, I am studying the seven churches in Revelations 2-3. The idea behind it is that Jesus gives a review of those seven churches, which represent churches collectively and also individual Christians. So, as Christians are sitting in the pew, they’re asking two basic questions — which of the seven churches best reflects what we are as a church? Secondly, which church would we say best reflects ourselves? Then, we determine how to respond to Jesus.
SDR: What is your main concern as a member of the clergy?
PS: I would say the bigger picture right now is that we are trying to find a way to connect with a culture right now that is turned off by institutional church. They love Jesus, but they don’t really get a warm fuzzy feeling about the church. We have a cultural mindset which shies away from institutional church. So that means people don’t mind helping others, following Christ, but they don’t want to get involved with the institution.
SDR: Which of the Ten Commandments does your congregation have the hardest time keeping?
PS: Collectively and generally speaking, a constant struggle for all of us is having no other gods, because it’s a contest between prioritizing the things of God and the other things in our lives. Oftentimes, the other things win.
SDR: What is the mission of your church?
PS: Get God. Share life. Give back. We want to make sure that you find a way to get God, and you do that through faith in Christ; we know that you can’t walk the journey alone, so you’re going to have to share it with others; and we know we have to bring Christ into the community and the world.
SDR: Where do you go when you die?
PS: I believe I go to heaven. Now, whether there’s a way to get to heaven if you’re not Christian, there’s a couple of things to say. It should be a black and white thing, that Christ is the only way…. But some scholar will ask about that guy living out there on an island who never heard of Christ — does God send him to hell just because he never heard? What I do believe is that for those who have heard Christ and rejected him, they will not go to heaven. For those who have not heard of Christ and have not had an opportunity to receive him, I believe God will judge the contents of their hearts, and that’s not my call. I do very much believe in a heaven and a hell. But hell, which we usually define by fire and brimstone, is in its simplest form a place where the loving presence of God is absent.
Here's something you might be interested in.
El Cajon Wesleyan Church
El Cajon Wesleyan Church
Steve Forsythe
Membership: 300 (and 130 Chaldean)
Pastor: Steve Forsythe
Age: 51
Born: Cape May, NJ
Formation: New Brunswick Theological Seminary, New Brunswick, NJ; Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena
Years Ordained: 26
San Diego Reader: How long do you spend writing your sermon?
Pastor Steve Forsythe: About 10 to 20 hours. Way before the sermons are written, I make sure to take time to pray and focus on some of the needs within the church, the things people are struggling with and dealing with. The second thing I do is a study of a book of the Bible. Right now, for instance, I am studying the seven churches in Revelations 2-3. The idea behind it is that Jesus gives a review of those seven churches, which represent churches collectively and also individual Christians. So, as Christians are sitting in the pew, they’re asking two basic questions — which of the seven churches best reflects what we are as a church? Secondly, which church would we say best reflects ourselves? Then, we determine how to respond to Jesus.
SDR: What is your main concern as a member of the clergy?
PS: I would say the bigger picture right now is that we are trying to find a way to connect with a culture right now that is turned off by institutional church. They love Jesus, but they don’t really get a warm fuzzy feeling about the church. We have a cultural mindset which shies away from institutional church. So that means people don’t mind helping others, following Christ, but they don’t want to get involved with the institution.
SDR: Which of the Ten Commandments does your congregation have the hardest time keeping?
PS: Collectively and generally speaking, a constant struggle for all of us is having no other gods, because it’s a contest between prioritizing the things of God and the other things in our lives. Oftentimes, the other things win.
SDR: What is the mission of your church?
PS: Get God. Share life. Give back. We want to make sure that you find a way to get God, and you do that through faith in Christ; we know that you can’t walk the journey alone, so you’re going to have to share it with others; and we know we have to bring Christ into the community and the world.
SDR: Where do you go when you die?
PS: I believe I go to heaven. Now, whether there’s a way to get to heaven if you’re not Christian, there’s a couple of things to say. It should be a black and white thing, that Christ is the only way…. But some scholar will ask about that guy living out there on an island who never heard of Christ — does God send him to hell just because he never heard? What I do believe is that for those who have heard Christ and rejected him, they will not go to heaven. For those who have not heard of Christ and have not had an opportunity to receive him, I believe God will judge the contents of their hearts, and that’s not my call. I do very much believe in a heaven and a hell. But hell, which we usually define by fire and brimstone, is in its simplest form a place where the loving presence of God is absent.
Comments