This is a review reporting both good and some possible flaws. The church seems to be reluctant to hear feedback or critique or even some requests for "help." We see this in the website which lacks a phone number or email addy for the church. There is a tab for "connect," and "connect" takes you to a page which invites you to become a member. The structure of the church is hierarchical. Feedback and critique or questions go up and down a chain of command. I assume this is set this way to save the lead pastor time so he is not overwhelmed.
I wish to provide some critique or least some experience and I know that they carefully do read and "respond" to yelp reviews. I cannot "email" "them," or call "them" up on the phone, but I can write a review which they will certainly read, since they are scrupulous about trying to maintain a positive, good reputation.
Good points: the church has dozens and hundreds of people who love God and are happy in their walk with God. Some people are doing well in their walk with God at this church. Some people at church, both staff, volunteers and ordinary are cheerful and friendly. The church has some ministries of service and one or more people at church report having been healed of some affliction.
The church has a strong social media presence used in part to promote and advertise itself, and the church is trying to spread or grow in other parts of the world
Flaws or weak: Please know that I am fallible and flawed. The music is often lacking in harmony and disagreeable. It is not possible, at least for me, to find out easily what music is being played or sung and then to learn it or critique independently. A search of VIVE music brings up pages and links to a completely different church in a completely different area, not associated with VIVE of Mt. View or VIVE of Oakland. Moreover, not only is the music often lacking in harmony or beauty, but if you simply stand or walk outside of the church buildings, you hear what is not music or singing, but the banging of drums. Some people report hearing the bad music across the street or a block away. The pastors or music ministry people and I may have a different view on what constitutes good music. Some of *them* seem to think that dancing or jumping makes things good and *I* think they are missing melody, harmonies and they have a lot of drum banging.
You can hear the banging outside the church building--but not the singing and not the melody, if any.
The church has a mild fixation on getting you into the process of 1) making you a member and 2) making you accountable in some way. It shows up in their website as of August 2025. How to connect with the church? According to the website, it is not to call or email, but to take a class on becoming a new member.
It is so strong that the 2nd or 3rd time I was at the Mountain View location, an usher or security guy came to me to ask if I was thinking of joining the church. Wow. I will remember that with my next potential girlfriend on our 2nd date. Hey, are you ready to get married get?
And the church seems to believe in accountability and orders flowing from the top down and not back up. I say that because if you listen to some of the messages, in several cases, either Adam or his wife have stated things not found in the Bible, with the claim that some sentence or two is found in the Bible. There was but little doctrinal significance to the extra sentence that Keira Smallcombe added to what the Bible actually says, in its story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.
But the average careful Christian is going to actually read the text in I Kings 18 and see that Keira added 1 or 2 facts, not in the text and said they were in the text. The Bible says to check things out and the Bible says the Bereans were more noble and the Bible says to let pastors who make such errors to know about their errors, if any.
Now, in Oakland, there is the pastor named Bobby. Bobby is concerned that I at times visit during between service fellowship and mostly do not stay for service. He does not want me to come, if I do not intend or commit to stay for service. He does not care about why I might choose to not stay for service, about either the music, or about errors in preaching-- obvious--if you simply read the Bible itself and notice the extra parts provided by Keira, or weird made-up definitions of words provided by Adam such as for the word "rejoice."
For I have heard them preaching in person and I have listened to Adam and Keira online. Before I give a lot more time to listening to them online, I wish to provide feedback about obvious factual errors. They are not big but they do reflect a careless attitude towards the word of God. Now, the leadership of VIVE in general or VIVE Oakland wants to make sure I am accountable to them, but they do not seem to wish any mutual accountability or feedback about problems or errors.
Who watches the watchers? No one. read more