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 …

"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 – …

“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 …

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 …

“God, You inhabit the praise of Your people,” said associate pastor Tony Inyang during the prayers before the service began, and the praise team started in making a suitable habitation. “Welcome into this place,” sang …

Traces of the old tile pattern still darken the stained concrete floor at Christ Lutheran, but they don’t distract much from the surface’s overall look — that of parched, cracked earth. It’s in sharp contrast …

The website for the California Marriage Protection Act (protectmarriagesd) features a “Protect Marriage” timeline, one which incorporates both spiritual and political efforts. (The act seeks to amend the California State Constitution so that marriage will …

For Rob Barnett, the long and winding road to VinVillage is finally coming to an end. The technical snags for his wine-based social-networking site — devoted to “creating locally based social wine groups and connecting …

“Give me that old-time religion/ It’s good enough for me,” sang the Chancel Choir from their section of seats at the Lamb’s Players Theatre. And Coronado Community Church did give that old-time religion, at least …

“I wish I’d known you were coming,” said Pastor Dan Slagle when I spoke with him after the service. If he had known, he could have warned me that part of the regular band was …

Toddlers sprawled quietly on the patch of thick carpet at the back of the dim auditorium, filling in their coloring books. Behind them stood a row of tables holding free Bibles, juice, sandwich bags filled …

“Never place a period where God has put a comma.” — Gracie Allen, quoted in UCC pamphlet. "God is Still Speaking” read the caption on the name-tag the greeter gave me on my way into …

There were in St. Elizabeth’s all the accoutrements you might expect to find in a grand-scale Catholic church; it was just that the statues of the saints, the stations of the cross, the devotional banners …

Among the posters and banners lining the long wall behind the pulpit in the storefront church was one that collected the names ascribed to Jesus in Scripture: “The resurrection and the life/ Judge/ Lord of …

The San Diego winemaker tour continues. This month, Costa Brava in Pacific Beach played host to Spanish winemaking icon Alejandro Fernández and his representatives from Classical Wines. “I was working as a retailer in the …

It was Father’s Day on Sunday, and fathers got at least three rounds of shouts and applause at Bayview Baptist Church — grandfathers and great-grandfathers, too. (At least five of the latter were in attendance.) …

Portrait of a church on the cusp: North Coast Calvary Chapel, founded as a home Bible study in Encinitas, was housed five years in a YMCA, then ten years in the Vulcan Center (now Encinitas …

The backlit wooden cross hanging on the wall above the stage was bare, but Christ crucified was a prominent feature of Sunday’s service at Pacific Beach Bible Church. I say prominent, not exclusive; the mentions …

The interior of St. Margaret’s church has an oddly spare quality — the huge central dome gives the impression of an old-fashioned Catholic church, the sort that might be swarming with statues and stained glass. …

A splatter of yellow vomit, left over from Saturday night’s Gaslamp revelry, baked in the Sunday-morning sun. Around it, glossy promo cards featured pictures of lightly dressed young women, advertising the weekend’s festivities. Down the …

Mothers got more than just a mention at Faith Community’s Sunday service, but they weren’t the main attraction. The music leader paused in the midst of the opening 30 minutes of hymns to ask “a …

Things I took away from Sunday’s service at Father’s House Church International: Israel and the Jews are important. An Israeli flag stood on one side of the stage. One of the hymns, in the midst …

From the outset, Kensington Community Church made the case for the “Community” part of its name. A congregant introduced herself to me, a visiting stranger, and asked if I would like company, or if I …

San Diego’s social status is ascendant. Of course, you knew that already — you live here. You’ve eaten in the new restaurants, drunk in the new nightclubs, partied in the new hotels. I mention it …

“You are here,” reads the tagline below “Grace” on the banners and bulletin covers for Grace San Diego. Undoubtedly, more than one layer of meaning is intended here — layer two may be something like, …

There is perhaps no finer marketing machine in all the wine world than the one that operates out of Champagne. (You don’t get to be the world’s official party wine without doing something right.) And …

I didn’t get to church on Sunday — this is what, my third flu this year? Pathetic, or maybe just scary. (“The germs are winning,” says Dad.) So I’ve got nothing on that front. But …

The La Mesa library recently placed California Wine a Sunset Pictorial, published in 1973 and edited by the estimable Bob Thompson, in a cardboard box outside the building’s front door. A visual history of the …

Jason Evans sat at one corner of his dining room table, his wife Brooke seated across from him, two young children at the head of the table between them. An array of crosses hung above …

Erica Martenson is not a scientist. Rather, she is a gardener. In her big backyard in Napa, she says, she has “several fruit trees and a small area where I have a vegetable garden. At …

File Under: Fiction Is Good for You. I was reading Peter May’s crime novel The Critic, which took as a dramatic starting point the murder of a famous wine critic, one Gil Petty. The hero, …

“Allow yourself to simply be one with the service,” read one of the suggestions in the program for the Good Friday Taizé Service at Light of Life Church. But there’s nothing like a nagging cough …

‘When you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you.” That line, from the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, serves as part of the epigraph for Peter May’s crime novel The Critic. The novel …

The 8:30 a.m. is the more contemplative of the Sunday services at La Mesa United Methodist. Throughout Lent, elements of Taizé spirituality have been incorporated into the service. The worship bulletin (church motto: “Open hearts. …

Oh, now this is a fun idea for a story: an American wine critic — one of those make-it-or-break-it critics in the mold of Robert Parker — winds up murdered, pickled in a vat of …

A pretty country quilt lay across an old four-poster bed on the stage at Pathways Community Church. The bed had been there throughout the church’s “Sexual Revolution” series — in which “revolution” was defined as …

‘Why don’t you write a book about wine?” You write about a subject long enough — nine years here at “Crush” — and you’re bound to hear it a few times. And every time I …

“I want to encourage you to enjoy really close fellowship today — about 15 people to a pew,” said Pastor Mark Wilkinson as the congregation poured through the doors of the small, spare church. The …

Don’t misunderstand — Robert Baizer is glad he went to Sundance. He had a lovely time — made even lovelier by the happy reception accorded Bottle Shock, a film he helped to finance. By festival’s …

And he showed me a river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb. — Revelation 22:1 That was the line that came to mind upon …

J. Todd Harris is a movie producer. That means that he gets films made. “I’m just like any other guy that goes and tries to find projects and tries to find financing and a director …

Besides the usual loincloth, the crucified Christ hanging in the front of the church was draped with a purple stole, which draped over His chest as it ran from one arm to the other, and …

By now, most people with even a passing interest in wine have heard of the Sideways effect: a movie takes Pinot Noir as a central metaphor for its thin-skinned and temperamental protagonist, and hey presto, …