James Moore, Jr. and family

New Paradise Baptist Church

Contact: 420 68th Street, San Diego 619-266-0214 www.newparadisebcsd.com

Membership: 350

Pastor: James Moore, Jr. 

Age: 56

Born: San Diego

Formation: Southern California Bible Institute, San Diego; Faith Evangelical Seminary, Tacoma, WA.

Years Ordained: 24

San Diego Reader: What is your main concern as a member of the clergy?

Pastor James Moore, Jr.: In this world we live in right now, I’m noticing a pulling back from strong sound doctrinal teaching. People are trying to keep members in church more by playing to what they want to hear, but it doesn’t really challenge the membership with righteousness, sin and lies, and things of that nature.

SDR: What is the mission of your church?

PM: First, to glorify God. Second, to edify the body of Christ through the discipleship process in terms of making disciples of Christ according to the great commission. We teach our people to observe all things that God commanded so that he will be with us until the end of the world. Third, our mission is to reach the lost. But you can’t reach the lost until you have a firm grasp on the doctrine that God teaches, in terms of how man is saved by Christ. We give to various ministries worldwide…to make sure we’re reaching beyond our ability to grasp, into the outermost parts of the world.

SDR: What book besides the Bible has been formative to your work as a pastor?

PM: There is a book by Robert Smith, Jr., who is a professor and leader of the preaching department at Beeson Divinity School (Samford University, Birmingham, AL). The book is called Doctrine of Dances: Bringing Doctrinal Preaching and Teaching to Life. He deals with the fact that the preacher is an exegetical escort and when a preacher stands up to proclaim God’s truth he is to lead the people through the proclamation of God’s word to the presence of God. In that way, transformation can take place in their lives. The book shows how we exegete scripture in our preparation and how important it is to fit it to the congregation we’re preaching to – so that we’re not simply going through the didactic motions but also have illustrations to bring out the truth in the scriptures.

SDR: Where is the strangest place you found God?

PM: I had a good upbringing in a middle class family whom God had blessed; and he’s blessed especially my mother and father, who have always been hard workers. They brought us up well and right. But when I go to San Diego’s inner city areas or other inner city areas, it almost looks as if God has forsaken these places. All that you look at is dreadful and hard to deal with. But there are still those who have come to know Christ, and who are strong in their faith, and God is using them in their communities to help us see that not all is lost.

SDR: Where do you go when you die?

PM: According to scripture, every one who places his trust and faith in Jesus Christ spends eternity in heaven with my lord and savior Jesus Christ for eternity. But those who reject God—and I go just by what the scriptures say—will spend eternal separation from the father in eternal hell and eternal torment in the lake of fire. I know that’s not a popular view in this day and time—so many are trying to write hell out of the Bible. But Jesus spoke about hell quite frequently in the scriptures.