“If you are visiting for just a few moments or a few hours, please know that you are granted immunity from the painful ravages of religious bigotry and intolerance. St. Paul’s...is a place where a …

Add Michael and Michele Kole to the list of pastors — The Rock’s Miles McPherson, New Venture’s Shawn Mitchell, et al. — to come out of Horizon Christian Fellowship. “Horizon is a great church,” said …

“Service?” asked the smiling man at the entrance to the AMC Theatres in the Otay Ranch Town Center. I was a little surprised — it’s 10 in the morning — but he had reason to …

It’s Easter morning and I’m driving home from the sunrise service at The Fields Church in Carlsbad and listening to NPR’s Weekend Edition because it’s early and the voices on NPR are so soothing, when …

“Welcome home!” read the handpainted banner in the vestibule of the half-saucer church. Inside, homemade signs rose up on coat-hanger posts from the pews: “Where we love is home.” “Home is not a place, it …

A loaf of bread and a pitcher (presumably of wine) flanked the oversized open Bible on the long stone altar at Northminster Presbyterian on Sunday, but there was no communion service. There wasn’t much liturgy …

There are times, sometimes in the midst of otherwise polite conversation, when it comes out that I make my living writing for the Reader. The follow-up to this revelation is almost never “Oh, that’s right, …

“I met my wife in a bar in New York City,” said Barabbas Road pastor Matt Smith. “I was a rower, training for the Olympics, and I hated religion. I knew she was the girl …

Do you guys serve beer? Only to ourselves. — From the Bronx Pizza FAQ on the back of the to-go menu It’s a good, pithy answer, entirely in keeping with the feel of the place. …

A chill clung to the air as the service began; it would be 11 minutes before the sun crested the hill to reveal the ranunculus and warm the 900 or so souls gathered in the …

One man's search for Christianity's core.

The service was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. At a quarter to six, the doors of the domed white church were still locked, but there was movement, and lots of it, in the next …

I was just thinking that this particular stretch of Del Mar Trails Road reminded me of some ancient Italian village (only with more yard space and much bigger houses), when a bend in the road …

There are times when the music at the opening of a service feels a little like a warm-up — something to get the blood flowing, or something to clear the cobwebs on a Sunday morning …

Say Lula Salon occupies the ground floor of a resuscitated Art Deco box in the East Village; on Sunday mornings, Icon Church occupies Say Lula. It’s a neat fit. The space was crammed with eclectic …

“Last Sunday, we worshipped in an ordinary, Lutheran way,” said pastor Laura Ziehl at the beginning of the service. “This Sunday we are blessed: Teen Rock is here. Today we will know a kind of …

“Our roots are downtown,” said Bob Buschman, pastor of First Assembly, now located on a nine-acre campus in Mission Valley. “In 1921, they brought an evangelist named Aimee Semple McPherson into downtown, and she preached …

Born to Americans living in England, Marc Hashagen grew up in Great Gidding, a farming village in Cambridgeshire. “A hundred houses, one pub, one butcher,” he recalls. “The public bus would come through on Wednesdays; …

Many churches of a certain age feature, at the back of the Sanctuary, a full-body baptistery — some sort of tank into which the believer may descend in order to be raised up into new …

Pastor John Ettore crouched down by my seat to welcome me, his hand heavy upon my shoulder, granite intensity in his face as he told me about Alan Vincent, an Englishman-turned-American and the guest preacher …

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord,” read Dwain Bostic at the outset. “‘Plans to prosper you and not harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.’” Hearing …

Sunday at Cornerstone Church of San Diego was bright with promise. It was also bright with spotlights and searchlights, glowing now white, now green, now pink during the opening half-hour of praise. The lights matched …

Anthony Terlato — importer, distributor, marketer, and now winery owner — never intended to write a book about his life in the wine business. He was content being the guy in the background who made …

The Sunday service in the well-used sanctuary at Highland Baptist ran the gamut of the Christian experience. Well, maybe not the gamut — the gamut is pretty huge — but a fair swath of it. …

“You don’t argue with a calling,” said Pastor Matt Ortiz before the service in the refurbished school auditorium. “We started out in west Chula Vista, but God called us into National City. I was talking …

“Today is the Solemnity of the Epiphany,” declared the reader before the beginning of Mass. “The focus of today’s liturgy is: ‘We need to proclaim God’s glory.’ The first reading tells us of the New …

Shabbat was over; the spare, clean-lined synagogue at Dor Hadash was empty. Instead, the community gathered in the adjacent room, decorated for a party. Tinfoil runners gleamed over blue-and-white tablecloths; clusters of silver-and-blue-foil dreidels hung …

The line, maybe 400 people long, ran back along Seventh Avenue from the entrance to the Hillcrest Whole Foods. An unusual sight for a winemaker bottle-signing, which made sense, because it was an unusual winemaker …

Ramona held its annual Christmas-tree lighting on the evening of December 13. At nine the next morning, the bell in the brown wood steeple above the First Congregational Church clanged out a summons to the …

The wall of windows looking into Green Valley’s vestibule was frosted around the transparent words: “Believe, Belong, Become...self-control, kindness, faithfulness, goodness, patience, peace, love.” Inside the vestibule stood a painting of what looked like a …

“The church was built in 1913, before there was even a street here,” said a congregant at Mission Hills United Methodist. “People love it for weddings.” Between the stained-glass dome, the Arts & Crafts woodwork, …

I can't tell you how it came to pass that the Italian winemakers Mario Schiopetto, Giacomo Bologna, and Maurizio Zanella joined Italian gastronomic giant Luigi Veronelli on a trip to America in 1981, a trip …

“Going up!” said a man as I passed by on my way to the Wednesday night Men’s Bible Study at Midway Baptist. His speech suggested that he might be developmentally disabled, but he and his …

Sunday’s service at Westminster Presbyterian was shot through with music. The folksy opening songs, full of strumming and tambourines and tentative harmonies, matched the ’60s decor (A-frame outfitted with stained glass at the base): “If …

“It’s a family thing we got going,” said the man in the long, gray plaid jacket, the silver of his rings matching that of the religious medallion hanging outside his vest. “We’re concerned about each …

November 2 was the Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed at St. Mary, Star of the Sea — All Souls’ Day, the Day of the Dead. Sheets of parchment hung along the walls of the …

“Yes on 8,” read the sign held by the man across the street from San Diego Christian Worship Center. Pastor Art Evans did mention Proposition 8 on Sunday, but he kept it pretty brief: “We …

The San Diego Bay Wine & Food Festival turns five this year and continues to draw light from ever-brighter stars in the foodie firmament. This year, the headliner is Ted Allen, who is, among other …

“Mystery School” (westernmysticism.org) ran a full-page ad in the Reader: “Stars transform into great explosions of light, scattering particles across the universe. We are all made of stars. Imagine what we can become.” The line …

Two armed security guards stood at the ticket-check tent outside the synagogue before the Yom Kippur evening service. Inside, things were more jovial: a man assigned to keep things reverently hushed had fashioned a title …

The pale-blue elementary school auditorium that houses the Chapel was a little more full than usual on Sunday. The extra attendees were there to witness the ordination of Roger Ziegler, a minister to Yard Three …

“He’s restored that villa to a fare-thee-well. That’s the trouble with Americans; all that money and no taste.” — Jonathan Trevanny, Ripley’s Game I: Acquisition This story begins with an ending: an estate sale in …

“New Eyes for New Hearts” was the theme of the service at Christian Church of Lemon Grove. On the stage, four tall boxes wrapped to look like presents made splashes of bright color in the …

“For more than 30 years,” said Vision pastor Patti Paris in her introduction, “Mother Antonia has lived in a small, cold cell in Tijuana’s La Mesa prison, where she ministers to some of the most …

"I figured there would be a lot of riesling. That’s why I brought a chardonnay – but it’s a different sort of Australian chardonnay, the Bindi Composition.” You don’t often hear sentences like that – …

The psychedelic stained-glass window over the altar (and even above the electric sanctuary lamp) caught the feel of Christ Church Unity pretty well: psychedelic, but still stained glass. Modern spirituality swirled with tradition. More examples: …

“Do you know we go up to the altar today?” asked the friendly woman seated in front of me. “We go up and receive bread and wine. It’s up to you; we’re not going to …

“Hurting people loved here,” read the tall, black letters on the sign outside North Park Baptist Church. “I think that’s started getting us in contact with people we don’t normally get contact with,” said senior …

“Theater matters because it’s the only place where one can find hope. Films are manufactured for us, but in the theater, the actors and the audience are getting together to manufacture a narrative, and to …

“I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!” — Miles, a Pinot Noir fan, in the film Sideways. Miles was that reviled thing: a tremendous, unabashed wine snob. And yet, people listened. Pinot Noir sales in America …