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Review of Cherry Hills Community Church

Cherry Hill has been our family's church home sinc...

Cherry Hill has been our family's church home since 1997. We grew spiritually with Pastor Dixon's messages and his vision to be focused on growing his congregation in God's word. Over the last 2+ years, it's been distressing to see what has happened to Jim's previous staff and the entire church family. Far too many staff members were replaced or moved on due to the new "direction" of the church. New Pastors typically bring in new people, which is fine, however, Shane Farmer, the new senior pastor came from Willow Creek in Chicago and it's interesting to see the number of Willow Creek transplants that he is bringing in. Cherry Hills has turned into the Colorado version of Willow Creek. Shane is a gifted presenter, however, his new vision seems far too focused on "church growth" and statitstics surrounding how to grow a church "the right way". I don't think God needs charts, graphs and focus groups to build His church.

The music has always been excellent and still is, however, the worship service has a very scripted feel. It's the same format each and every Sunday. Example...the congregation is asked to sit down durning the offeratory, however, the song that is played while the offering is being taken is one that attempts to stir emotion about 1/2 way through to get the congration to stand up again. This happens 90% of the time. Scripted worship just feels wrong.

We have multiple children and have not been impressed with the new MidPoint and HighPoint. These two programs again seem very seeker friendly and appear to bring the "world" into church to make it more palatable to the kids. There should be no reason, IMO, that Katy Perry and Taylor Swift music should be filling the air at church functions and retreats. These are two "role models" that parents should want their girls to stay away from due to their lyrics alone. It's a strange conversation to have with your daughter when you say she can't have Katy Perry music on her IPod because of [insert the 100 reasons here!] and she responds with "well why do they have her music on at church?"

Overall we do not feel at home at Cherry Hills any longer and are currently seeking a new church home.