Pacific Crossroads Church Downtown

I’ve been invited to several services while visiting my son, and his family in LA, during the past few years.
We’re from the east coast, and have still not found a church in our area that comes close to the experience at PCC.
Rankin Wilbourne, Pastor, delivers the most uplifting sermons ever experienced in my life :-)!
He’s extremely well read, and is able to connect with his parishioners as well as visitors; making a lasting, moving impression celebrating the Joy of the Lord, that exits for all who are considering, questioning, and believe.
The music is at such a top notch professional level; I would expect it to be a paid entry concert!
The congregation is composed of mostly young to middle-​aged families with little ones, and singles, plus a few seniors in the mix.
All are welcomed with genuine, gracious friendliness & no pressure to participate or join. Which
leaves it up to each visitor to decide on their own… if they want to belong and participate.
If you’re in LA on a Sunday, and want to explore a very special christian place of worship…
This is it!

Of the churches I’ve visited/​attended while living in LA, PCC has got to be the closest thing to a reformed church for hipsters. Not a bad thing if you’re a hipster, but if you’re not and the idea of visiting a church full of hipsters scare you, don’t be. The people are welcoming, the teaching/​preaching is rock solid (and I mean reformed) and the community is great.
The DTLA congregation meets up in an old Episcopal church/​cathedral and if you’re from the Philly area, you’ll understand what I mean when I say it has a very Tenth Presbyterian Church feel to it just from an architectural standpoint. The worship music is toned down, ethereal choice in comparison to the worship service at RealityLA (which I love as well).
In case you didn’t know, PCC is a plant of Tim Keller’s Redeemer in NYC so you know that it’s reformed and that they have a huge commitment and passion to serving those living in and around the community.
The pastoral staff is amazing in that their humility and passion for preaching the Gospel is clearly transparent in what they say, how they say it, and to everyone they say it to. They do a great job on expounding the text from a redemptive-​historical perspective in its original context and interpreting that in light of the Gospel and Jesus. Unlike many reformed churches that I visited, not only do they preach the Gospel but do so without giving into a sermon based on moral living, which sadly from my experience happens too often.
If you want good, reformed preaching you can listen to past sermons online via their website and there’re some great stuff on there.
I’d highly suggest you check out a small/​community group and get plugged in if you choose to commit to going to PCC long-​term as it’s essential to Christian living.
Parking: Minimal on church grounds but there is an auxiliary lot across the street

Though I usually attend the morning services at Santa Monica High School, I had the opportunity to worship at the downtown location of Pacific Crossroads last week.
It was the same service as the morning service, which is tremendous. The Pacific Crossroads’ services are ALWAYS great.
I enjoyed this location, but in the proximity to the city and is really a beautiful place of worship.
I highly recommend Pacific Crossroads to anyone in the LA area, both for travel and for those looking for a church home.

It’s a little strange to write such a personal review, but I believe PCC deserves the attention. I left my home church years ago due to a lot of hurt feelings and broken trust, and have been floundering since. I half-​heartedly church-​hopped for years… from the conservative, almost fundamentalist to the extremely Pentacostal… I’ve been to them all. It’s difficult to find a church when an individual is burdened with lots of history as a pastor’s kid and as someone who served for a long time in an Asian-​American church.
I had given up, but my parents hadn’t. They continued to research churches and take me, dragging a grumpy and complaining me to various church services across LA. They hit the jackpot here. I first attended the Santa Monica service with my parents and immediately realized they were on to something special here. The liturgy here is clear and purposeful. The theology is extremely solid. Rankin’s preaching is clear, thoughtful, highly logical, and unapologetically dense with meaning and supportive evidence from the text (the Bible) and theological tradition. At the same time, he is a charismatic and engaging speaker. His sermons are a marriage of precise theology and academic thoughts and engagement with the congregation.
If you are looking for convenient selective reading of the Bible tailored to YOUR needs, this is not the church for you. Rankin’s preaching is very much about the narrative of the God of the Old and New Testament, and how WE fit into His plans. Not the other way around. The teaching here is about how WE can engage with the text, with careful thought and attention to context and historical/​cultural readings of the text, not just convenient modern interpretations of an ancient text.
You may not agree with all of their stances on social issues such as LGBT and abortion (I don’t agree with them on everything myself), but you can respect where they come from and that they have clear biblical and theological support (not just selective verses that are picked out sometimes by the religious right to be conveniently selected for their use) for what they believe in, and they have interpreted the text in the way that they have.
No matter who you are and where you are in life and what your political and cultural affiliation, however, this church is open and accepting and will love you just where you are.
For the 20– or 30-​something professional especially, this is a wonderful church with many, many community groups across the LA area. They are passionate in engaging with their congregation and their pastoral staff is caring, upbeat, and have a clear vision for the church. If you choose to, you can become very involved here and grow your faith and knowledge of God by leaps and bounds. Here, you can find (again, if you choose to reach out and get involved) groups of people who are open and willing to love you for who you are but at the same time keep you accountable.
There are so many different service opportunities to give back to the greater community of Los Angeles here, and social justice is one of the main tenants of this church, as it should be in any church. The New Testament and Paul’s letters are very much concerned with social justice, and we should be too. Here is a church that not only preaches that idea, but also is alive with practicing it.
The worship music is solid — a more acoustic version in the downtown location, and the music is a mix of modern worship music and some arrangements of hymns and older praise music. I particularly love the contemplative Bach preludes and adagios that the worship leader sometimes plays during offering, as I do not believe we look towards the old classical music repertoire in our church music often enough.
No church is perfect and you may have an imperfect experience with certain people or community groups (I haven’t, but you might), but give this church a chance. It’s a lovely place to grow in and has brought me back to community in Christ in a way I didn’t think was possible anymore in Los Angeles.

I feel kind of weird to review a church here on Unilocal… but here’s my review.
Pacific Crossroads Church is a church plant of Tim Keller’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. It’s definitely on the conservative end of the spectrum and the music here in the downtown church is more acoustic-​based. I’ve never been to the Westside services in Santa Monica but my guess is that the music style is similar.
What really impresses me about this church is their commitment to serving the communities around L.A. They’ve got many service ministries throughout the month so there’s always an opportunity to get involved with the community.
Having service in a very ornate Episcopal church does seem a bit odd, but the acoustics and interior design are pretty nice to see and hear. I just wish the congregation got a bit more into the groove… I’m sorry, I grew up in a very Pentecostal church so I’m not used to worship with whom my friend calls «the frozen chosen». However, the solid preaching, teaching, community groups and community service outweigh my little gripe about the praise time.