Sheep and Goats
It wasn't so much the 22 candles being lit for the High Mass celebrating All Saints' Day at All Saints' Episcopal Church; it was the guys lighting them: two strapping young Polynesians in floor-length black …
From the second song on, the band at Calvary San Diego -- drums and guitars and pop synthesizers -- had the congregation's pulse. (They had the congregation's look as well: a mix of young and …
At the Mass's opening, Father Felix Shabi's voice sounded from behind the red curtain concealing the Sanctuary. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit..." The curtain hung …
"Each one win one" and "Go ye therefore..." read the raised foam letters on the back wall of Mira Mesa Bible Baptist Church. Below these exhortations hung rows of framed, typewritten missives from Baptist missionaries, …
Polished pop filled the vast, low, pale-gray box that housed The Rock Church. On stage behind the band stood mock highway signs, highlighting the book of Numbers as a road trip: a caution triangle warning …
Pastor John Kim was finishing up the hour of Sunday school that preceded the service: "Why do people turn to drugs and other things? They need something to help them deal with the realities of …
Saint Gregory the Great might be an Arts & Crafts arboretum, with its huge slatted dome of a ceiling, its preponderance of windows framed by great beams of wood, its gray-green tile floor, its trickling …
"NEXT Church," read the painted sign running along one wall of the converted industrial space: poured concrete floors, concrete-block walls painted in muted red and yellow, a canopied stage in one corner, and a '60s-era …
"We are an inclusive community that encourages free thinking and compassionate living," said church board member Susan Weaver. "We have gathered here to consider the most significant issues in life and to make manifest in …
In the teen section of Scripps Mesa Bible Church's library/snack room, Douglas Coupland's novel Generation X gets face-out treatment. Someone has taken a highlighter to certain passages. One such: "I wonder that all things seem …
"We're going to make some noise today!" proclaimed one of the choristers from the stage of the auditorium. "Oh, bless the Lord with the fruit of your lips! We serve an awesome God!" The drums …
"When the music fades/ All is stripped away/ And I simply come, longing just to bring/ Something that's of worth," sang Trevor Davis. "I'll bring you more than a song..." But songs were exactly what …
"As we sing 'Empty Me' together, just make it a prayer in your heart," said the music leader before the penultimate song. "Say, 'God, empty me of everything I am.'" It was his second such …
St. Paul's Cathedral displays a kind of unadorned majesty. Long green banners, tiny stations of the cross, and a couple of Madonna-and-child paintings are all that break up the great expanses of smooth, gray-green concrete …
Father Acker first addressed the congregation clad in a white cassock with an embroidered green stole knotted into his rope belt. His chasuble hung over a nearby chair. In contrast to these formal trappings, his …
The service opened with film clips: Adam Sandler doing a slow burn in Anger Management and Jane Fonda exploding with fury in Monster-in-Law . The congregation laughed throughout. Then a round of songs, ranging from …