Maranatha Chapel - San Diego, California

Karen L.

A place to call your family & another home. Love pastor Daniel Bentley & all the associate pastors. Lovely worship music. Cordial people- donuts 🍩 coffee ☕️ when you haven’t time on Sundays. They pray 🙏 for you. Mail a post card on how are you. No one rushes you 🙏💕
I feel the Holy Spirit when I go and sit- quiet- soak it up. Cleansing, peaceful for thirsty souls GOD IS REAL

Rebecca L. M.

Our family has loved and grown in this church for the past 7 years. Big church with a
tight-knit family feel. Lots of programs and ministries for every age. Faith building women's ministry. Amazing children's ministry. Awesome worship. Wonderful friendships. We are blessed and well fed on the Word here.

Yanis H.

The sound is wayyy to soft. I wish they could turn up the sound but they say they can't once they change it can't be done. People say it's too loud why can't those find another church for thr older crowd. I'm not liking the sound too soft makes me not want to stay and worship is so few of songs. Turn up the volume pls....

Nicole M.

Found Maranatha online during COVID in Aug 2020. Have never looked back and decided to move to San Diego on Sept 2022 to be closer connected with Maranatha. The best church I’ve ever attended. The teachings are proud and filled with so much love and care.

It’s a big church with family vibes. Everyone I have encountered and met since attending weekly service and women’s weekly Bible studies have been so warm. My life has forever changed by learning from the late Pastor Ray via streamed services and his Step Into the Story series, which is now hosted by his son Pastor Daniel Bentley which is a pure joy.

The worship team is a delight. The music hits my soul and brings such joy to my life. Kayla and Jimmy who lead are outstanding in their talent. Kayla’s voice is heavenly.

If you’re looking for a new church, please come and visit Maranatha. It’s an extraordinary community with many events to feel closer connected to the Lord, each other and offers so much foundational support and strength for this day and age.

I have been forever transformed and found my home. God answered my prayers and can do the same for you.

All around 5+ stars and beyond. I have a twinkle in my eye after going through so much loss this year.

Thank you Maranatha and staff.

Judah M.

You are going to LOVE this body of believers. A group of Christ-followers who gather to worship and praise, to fellowship through meaningful friendships and tight knit community, to give and serve generously, and to be transformed into the image of God's Son.

The worship isn't some showy performance, it's heart felt and genuine. The preaching has depth bur is also relatable and easy to digest. You don't need a degree in theology to understand the messages.

The pastor is young (mid-40's),so the sermons have a certain energy and enthusiasm to them.

The congregation has a heart for Israel and the Jewish people. They celebrate the Feasts of the Lord.

Come check out Maranatha Chapel, and experience the joy, healing, and presence of the Lord.

Jessica M.

Wonderful people attend here.

I've reduced stars entirely because of the shady interactions of Maranatha's church government (as a survivor of church sexual abuse, I take church government very seriously)

Years ago Maranatha ran a ministry in which they provided boxed gifts to impoverished children around the world. Operation Christmas Child (OCC Maranatha).

Maranatha asked a woman we’ll call “Jane Doe” to lead the ministry. This woman grew this ministry to the point where she rented a warehouse to manage the sheer multitude of supplies and volunteer events.

One day, Jane Doe chatted with Mrs. Bentley (Lead Pastor Ray Bentley’s wife) about the ministry. When Mrs. Bentley heard about the warehouse, MRS. BENTLEY volunteered her desire for the warehouse to be funded by Maranatha. Her husband, Lead Pastor Ray, RIGHT NEXT to her, did not dispute Mrs. Bentley’s offer. By not retracting the offer, Ray co-signed it according to Numbers 30:14.

Maranatha Church began to fund half of the warehouse cost. About $1,000 a month.

Move forward to 2023. Mr. Bentley passed away. The lease on the warehouse ran out. The new lease would cost approximately a thousand dollars more a month. Increasing maranatha’s half of the commitment from $1,000 to $1,500.

Maranatha withdrew their financial support, claiming that OCC was costing them “$80,000-90,000 a year”.

This choice GUTTED the ministry. They lost the warehouse.

Leadership failed to mention that in 2022, Maranatha congregant donors DIRECTED approximately $65,000 in the financial account of OCC Maranatha. Maranatha then donated $12,000 from general funds.

Provided numbers are directly from Jane Doe's official financial statements.

In reviewing 2022 church financials, I found the following expenditures for a $10 MILLION in revenue church/school - that could not pay $1500 a month for OCC:

- $150,000 storage for books
- $40,000 spent in marketing the book series
- $70,000 for guest speakers/musicians NOT approved by the oversight board (By Pastor Chial’s own confession).
- $350,000 a year for radio broadcasting
- $274,000 for “meals and entertainment”. $18,000 went to donuts, specifically, and the rest apparently went to…such things as the Feast of Trumpets (I did enjoy those hot dogs, I confess) and a single volunteer appreciation meal
- $500,000 in interest expense…although Pastor Chial told me they only paid 2.5% interest. Somebody please explain those numbers.
- $1,788,000 in depreciation and amortization. Whoppers.
- It’s interesting that employee benefits, salaries/wage, and guest speaker/musicion compensation add up to $6,454,402 - this is 60% of the church income (the industry standard is 50% MAX).

Odd, for a non-profit, how they would not tell me how much their highest paid salary came out to. But apparently, because they are a very old non-profit, they are exempt from such rules. Pastor Chial kindly confirmed this for me with his lawyer. Very generous of him.

I found these figures…odd.

I asked what happened when church members disagreed with the budget. He said “they vote with their feet”. God chose him as pastor so he decided the budget. I kid you not. He said it.

I asked Chial to see the church by-laws (the formal statement of church government). Non-profits are required, by law, to provide this upon request. Most non-profits post it (and financial documents) on their website for transparency. Unlike Maranatha.

My request was denied by both Pastor Chial, gently dismissed by Cook…and Pastor Daniel Bentley did not respond.

When I told Chial I would file a complaint, he said, and I quote: “Go ahead! You are clearly unhappy at Maranatha. Why don’t you just find another church? File the complaint with the IRS. You can file a complaint with the pope for all I care.”

I have spoken to multiple church leaders. I found no further response to my complaint.

Susan B.

Moving away is one of the hardest decisions to leave San Diego , of course not being present on the church services. The good thing is we can watch the services online. But missing our Bible study group. We have not found a comparable church where we are. Have learned a lot about understanding the Scriptures and knowing how much Jesus loves us. We're grateful and blessed for God's mercies, grace, protection, daily provisions. Missed Pastor Ray, but the church is in good hands with Pastor Daniel and staff.

diannaing1

** See Updates Below

Please Read! Our daughter is the live in girlfriend of Pastor Martin Sanders son. We have reached out to him at his "Church" to try to speak with him and have received no response whatsoever despite speaking with two other "Pastors" regarding a sensitive and pressing personal matter. Jonathan
Elliott was very kind and we felt comfortable that he would pass the message along. However, Danny Ramos was the polar opposite. He was rude, condescending, dismissive and seemed to have no compassion for our situation. It has been almost a week since we left our first message and still no response from Pastor Martin Sanders. We are all appalled at our treatment from this "Mega Church". If this is how they care for their only sons girlfriend and her concerned parents, we cannot imagine that they care for their multitude of regular parishioners. Completely irresponsible and very sad.
* Important Note* We had, initially, tried to post this review on another site on Feb-12-2023. It has, oddly, "disappeared" twice. We were contacted by someone very close to Pastor Sanders. This person said that he had spoken with him directly and was asked by him to contact us to remove our review. We felt very pressured but politely declined and reiterated that everything in the review was unfortunate but correct and factually accurate. This all felt very strange and dishonest. To date, we have still not received a call back or message from Pastor Sanders nor anyone directly from Maranatha Chapel.

**Update January 2025
Pastor Sanders finally called us back approximately 2 weeks after we left many messages at the church. He was extremely rude. I called him Pastor Sanders, out of respect, he told me that HE WAS NOT MY PASTOR. I never stated that he was. I simply wanted to have a conversation about my daughter. He insisted that all of the lying was my child’s fault and his son had no part of it. This is absolutely false. He then had nothing else to say. I was shocked that this man is a Pastor AND a Father. Just after this, our daughter called us crying and begging us to take this review down. His son then took the phone from our crying daughter and asked us to take the review down. We declined as it is a factually accurate account of all that has happened. Our daughter, clearly, was made aware of this review by Pastor Martin Sander either personally or by him through his son. Additionally, she was pressured to contact us to remove the review either directly by Pastor Martin Sanders or by him through his son. One evening after this, our daughter called yelling and cursing at us to say that she never wanted anything to do with us ever again. To date, we have spoken to our daughter twice in 2 years. It is heartbreaking. And it was clearly a result of Pastor Martin Sanders exerting pressure on my child and likely his own son. Disgraceful.