St Andrew’s Presbyterian Church

After over 40 years, I now worship elsewhere since the church voted to leave the presbyterian Church USA

Theologically 100%, Sermons are great and have some humor thrown in at times, but don’t mistake that for some feel good place. They are absolutely spot on and everything is about Jesus. The way it should be.
Kids clubs are excellent and the music is the best I have heard anywhere in a Church.
Brandon Muchow is the lead. awesome.

DO NOT HAVE YOUR WEDDING HERE. the two girls running the weddings, «Kara» and «Megin», are completely INCOMPETENT and have no clue of what they are doing. the lady who USED to be in charge of the weddings, («Raychal»), lied to us and was nothing more than deceitful throughout our process.
i’m going to try and keep this as terse as possible. if i were to explain everything, it would take up the entire front page of this evil, money hungry «church.»
over 2 yrs ago, my wife and i were looking for a wedding venue. this church appeared to have it all. great location, gorgeous chapel, etc. also, the two girls in charge seemed friendly and eager to do a good job. they were new (honestly, i have no idea if they are even still at this church) and were taking over for some other lady, who we initially had communications with.
fast forward, after about 2 months and a few visits w/​«Kera» and «Magin», we started to get nervous about our decision. first, the girls gave us conflicting information about the costs of the wedding, i.e. various tableware costs and other things. when asked to give us a detailed accounting of all of the costs (which they initially said was all included in the final price), they couldn’t. their stories kept changing. next, they double booked our wedding day with another wedding right on top of ours, even though we never even had given them a final start/​stop time for our wedding. they told us we would be the only wedding that day, but then pressured us to have the other party within 30 mins after ours. then they claimed that they «had up to 3 weddings a day.» funny, you didn’t say that from the beginning.
also, they had our wedding day on the WRONG DAY. when confronted w/​this erroneou move on HER part, (either «Megon» or «Carra», i can’t remember) she had the audacity to get pissed off at US. i then asked that they provide a formal contract w/​all of the terms of the agreement. her response? «your check is your contract. if you don’t like it, you can go elsewhere.» really???
well, we decided to take our wedding elsewhere. the girls were completely incompetent and were screwing us around.
when we initially gave over two separate deposit checks, we specifically asked what their deposit policy was. «Raychel» NEVER TOLD US THE DEPOSIT WAS NON-​REFUNDABLE. i still have all of the emails saved. nor did their website ever say this. also, we never signed a formal contract. however, the «church» then decided that they were going to keep all of our money! (luckily, only one check had been cashed.) so, after fighting tooth and nail, they ‘oh so graciously’ decided to return half of our remaining, already cashed $ 500 check. (also, in the midst of all this, they conveniently ‘updated’ their wedding website to include a non-​refund policy on their deposits. hahaha laughable.)
the final icing on this massive, rotting cake; it took weeks before anyone replied to us and even more weeks to finally get our measly $ 250 back. we sent a very polite email to, basically all of their staff to get ANY response in the beginning. they were just going to ignore us and keep our money. towards the end, i had to threaten legal action to get our $ 250 check.
and to the HEAD pastor. SHAME ON YOU. after all of the emails we directly sent to you, you were just too good to even grace us w/​your reply? keep riding that high horse you’ve created for yourself.
even as Christians ourselves and even after all this time, this experience still pisses us off. the lack of professionalism and courtesy from a CHURCH is staggering. all masked behind «God bless yous», we still feel incredibly insulted and robbed. STAY AWAY.

I have been attending of St. Andrews for a long time, and I totally believe Rob C’s review about St. Andrews totally lying to him when planning his wedding. The reason I am writing this review is to reply to it, and give the story behind the Head Pastor he is talking about. St. Andrews was once a church that acted like a church, and did the outside world a lot of good. This all changed 4 years ago When Reverand John Huffman retired, and Pastor Rich Kannwischer came in from Texas, and took over. Almost right away Kannwischer turned a great church into a Shrewd Business operation. All Kannwischer cares about is making money for the church, and in turn making money for himself. There are many people who work at St. Andrews that don’t trust pastor Rich. But they are afraid to challenge him on anything for fear of losing their job. This happened a couple of years ago when a lady (a great christian lady, who was very competent at her job) who had worked there for something like 15 years challenged him on some unethical things. He would soon fire her. He made up an excuse that the church didn’t need her department anymore. But everyone on the inside knows the real reason why. She was on to his lack of integrity, and putting his needs way above the needs of St. Andrews. To Be fair to pastor Rich, has done nothing against the law or illegal to my knowledge. But he is untrustworthy according to myself, and some other people.
The thing with Pastor Rich is the Congregation at St. Andrews absolutely loves him. He is VERY GOOD at speaking to the church during service. I have never seen a pastor who is so good at impromptu speaking. He can think up of new stuff in the blink of an eye. And he knows how to SUCK UP to to the wealthy people at St. Andrews. He is very friendly with them. And he has completely won them over. But this is all to benefit Pastor Rich. He loves their weekly offering, and wants them to even increase their giving. Hopefully the Congregation will see through this Phony someday, and let him go. Then St. Andrews can return to becoming a normal church.
I do disagree with Rob C’s assessment of Rachel Stone. I don’t know her super well, but I do know her. She is not what Rob C says she is. She is a very ethical lady, who is no liar. She is very well respected in the community. What I think has happened is Rob C is completely wrong about her. Or she wants to keep her job, and go with Rich Kannwischer’s unethical ways. I think the latter.

Always a delight to attend a service here. The entire worship service brings me either a convicted heart or a joyful heart. Often times both. The entire staff is filled with the Holy Spirit & Christ shines making for an experience not to be missed.

Well very happy to call this place home. As well as family from Pastors, Leaders, church, staff, and all of us who make up the body of believers. This place lives out and follows what they preach. Found this place after not going or being involved in church in awhile. Stared attending then joined a life group and serving with deferent groups became a member now I’m a deacon. If you would have asked me 7 years ago if I would conceder going to a Presbyterian church and said I would be a deacon I would have said your nuts! Very worm friendly all walks of life young and old rich and poor love my church family!!!

This is a wonderful community of people who are attempting to lead lives that reveal God’s goodness. My husband and I found the church when looking for a church in which to marry in 1992. We got married at St. Andrews in October ’92 and have called this church home ever since. We find St. Andrew’s to be a vibrant community of people and love the multi-​generational mix. Our weekend services offer both classic, traditional worship services as well as modern worship services. The pastors are all excellent, preaching/​teaching biblical principals and truths. Wednesday Night Together, the mid-​week teaching is relevant and educational. A tasty dinner is also offered on Wednesday nights, great for the whole family and a welcome break from cooking.
There are a lot of ways to get involved; from being an usher or a greeter, to helping with the Wednesday night dinners, life groups, life studies, and many ways to serve both within the church and the larger community.
Come check us out!

Let me start by saying that I don’t believe any church is perfect, since the church is just a gathering of sinners trying to live Christ-​centered lives together, but I gave St Andrew’s Pres 5 stars for the following reasons:
— after attending regularly over the last 7 years, this community has become a family to me and my family.
— the teaching is Biblical
— lots of ways to get involved: small groups and studies, dining fellowship, local and global missions and outreach.
— excellent children’s programs (my mom used to tease that she hated driving with the kids after church because they would always ask very thought provoking and challenging questions… ha!)
— multigenerational congregation — I believe our lives are truly enriched through this diversity
— music! I’m a HUGE fan of traditional hymn and songs so I love the 8am and 9:30 services with the orchestra and choir. Our family does enjoy the modern worship of the Saturday night service and the 11:11am Sunday service, as well, though.
— mid-​week teachings are incredibly thought provoking, relevant and challenging (and there is a good meal always served beforehand with some great company)
Come and visit sometime. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

This church has the best of everything. The music is great at both the traditional and modern services. The message is engaging without being shallow and touches at both the intellectual and emotional level. The people are friendly and caring. Their theology is biblically sound and culturally significant. I’ve been going here more than 15 years and love it. The members here are my second family.

This Church community rocks. Great to see an older, well established congregation grow as this Church with the community. Something for everybody here and a mission to lead lives to reveal Gods goodness is a picture of the real life we are all looking for. Check out Kean Coffee and special café drinks at Standrews. Lead Pastor is probably one if the best young preaching Pastors I have ever heard.

Music and the message is worth the trip from NC to hear! They also have the sermons online.

This is such a beautiful church!!! I came here for a wedding and it was literally stunning, as well as spacious, inside the sanctuary. The church is conveniently located near the 55 freeway and is on the border of Newport Beach and Costa Mesa, so there’s also a lot of nearby restaurants and stuff to do. Since I haven’t been here for any of the services, I’m hesitant to give this place 5 stars, but they definitely deserve 4 stars for their beautiful sanctuary, easy parking (lots of spaces), and clean facilities!

My family has attended this church for the last 5 years. It has been a wonderful experience, and we hope you will come check it out if you’re searching for a church in the area.

We began going to this church, after attending the Christmas service that Ashley G., knocked. We have been welcomed, loved, carried and attended to, since we have been going. Since attending St. Andrew’s we are more involved in church than I have been in years. The children’s program is AMAZING. The number one reason we began attending. We have been at a few churches in the last 13 years and never have had the welcoming that St. Andrew’s has given to our family. My husband and I love going to church and we LOVE the pastor. The church has a nice range of cultural diversity. People may appear wealthy, but it is important not to judge a person based on the outside appearance. And the congregation is quite loving. Also, if I am going to church and looking at fur coats and who is skinny, what is that saying 3 fingers pointing back at me. We love it and if you are reading this I hope to see you there.

My mom has started going to church here and wanted to go to the Christmas Eve service when I was back home visiting for Christmas. I’d never been to a Presbyterian church before, but it was pretty much what I expected in this neighborhood of OC… very traditional in style, mostly upper middle and upper class… lots of fancy vehicles in the parking lot. My sister made a game of counting fur coats and anorexic women. She counted 5 fur coats in our immediate area, much to our disdain. The church is in a lovely building in an upscale Newport Beach neighborhood. We sat upstairs and the pews were pretty full shortly after the service started. The seating was comfortable. There was a beautiful (and large!) choir and huge organ pipes built into the wall behind their seating on the stage area. The music style was pretty traditional and pleasant, though not particularly moving to me personally as my worship music preferences lie more in Christian rock style. The choir hit all the Christmas standards.
The sermon was short and sweet, albeit a bit cheesy and dumbed down. The pastor/​reverend told a fairly silly story involving Billy Joel surprising his daughter on her birthday when she thought he was stuck out of town working. He reportedly told her he couldn’t make it but to expect a big gift at the door around 7pm. Turned out to be a 7ft box… which Billy Joel jumped out of. And the daughter was so excited blah blah blah and said over and over: «I can’t believe it’s you. You’re really here.» I guess it was supposed to be some type of analogy for the Father always being there for us and showing up when we least expect him or something. Then there was one comment he made when he wanted us all to stand and applaud/​scream as loudly as possible (to sound like «The Applause of Heaven») and essentially told us to pretend like we were not reserved «golf-​clap» Presbyterians but African Americans at a Baptist Church! I would have felt so uncomfortable if I were an African American worshipping there. He really should’ve run that sermon by someone else before giving it to the whole congregation! So I give four stars to the service and two stars to the preaching. It’s a pleasant enough church but not really my scene. I can see why it appeals to my mom though. And that’s okay… there’s a church out there for everyone who wants one :)

I went and worked at St. Andrews for about 3 years. The Presbyterians have their heads on right and can deliver a very educated, meaningful sermon. Thats what I really liked about St. Andrews. They also have a ton of organizations, groups, get together’s, dinners, ect. that anyone can be involved with. They are always thinking of how they can help the community and give back which I also really thought was an important feature to a church. However, being in Newport Beach be prepared to have many wealthy socialites in the mix. This has historically been an older church (things are rapidly changing to invigorate the congregation though) and many people — in my opinion — can be unaccepting of others. don’t let this deter you! there are a ton of great people here and i’m sure if you look you will find them!