This Is The Place

(circa 1971)

It was a warm summer Saturday evening in a historic neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles. Bill’s parents told us that we needed to arrive at least an hour early in order to get a seat. As we entered the simple, unassuming building on the corner of 11^th St. & Elden Ave, the air was electric with excitement. The gathering hadn’t “officially” begun yet but the building was almost full and those that were there, were already exuberantly singing, accompanied by strumming guitars and jingling tambourines.

There was no program, no schedule – totally spontaneous. The meeting was simply filled with young people who were over the moon in love with Jesus. Someone would call out a song to sing, then someone else would stand up and give a testimony of something that they enjoyed in the song or something that the Lord did in their life that day. The joy was palpable and contagious and we were swept up in the excitement. We had never experienced Jesus in such a delightful way, free from the bonds of religion. Our hearts were filled until we thought they would burst.

The next day back at our church we tried in vain to explain our experience to our friends in our young married Sunday school class. How do you put such an experience into words? Yes, they seemed happy for us but, understandably, they just couldn’t grasp what we were trying to explain.

After Sunday school, we went into the church service – sedate, quiet, methodical… The contrast of our experience the night before and the church service that morning was overwhelmingly stark.

And so, we returned to the gathering in Los Angeles the next Saturday night, and the next. We simply couldn’t stay away. It’s like God was gently compelling us: “Yes, this is the way I want you to go. This is what I have been leading you to.”

TWO MEETINGS AND A MARCH

This church would host a two-week study of a certain book of the Bible every summer and people from all over the world would come. This year there were about 1500 people and the study was on the book of Ezekiel. It was held in the huge, historic Embassy Auditorium in Los Angeles. We hesitantly entered the building with Bill’s parents, along with hundreds of laughing, smiling people. The 70-year-old auditorium was dimly lit and was furnished with old, creaky theater seats but it was alive with the excitement of people hungry for God’s word. We only went to a couple of those meetings but it was enough to experience the Bible in a way that we had never experienced before. The Bible was no longer a book of doctrines and laws of do’s and don’ts. No, it conveyed the living, breathing, speaking person of God directly into us.

The conference culminated on a Saturday afternoon where they were staging a huge march through the streets of downtown Los Angeles. The purpose of the march was simply to proclaim the mighty name of Jesus throughout the city and to preach the gospel to anyone who would listen. There were about fifteen hundred people that hot September day, gathering at Pershing Square. We were filled with trepidation, having no idea what to expect. This was so far out of our comfort zone – so foreign to us, but we were with Bill’s parents and were surrounded by some very sweet, joyful people. It was just painfully embarrassing, being part of something like this. But we swallowed our pride and joined in.

There were drummers and trumpeters and people that would hand out tracts and be available to talk to people on the street and invite them to a gathering later that evening.

And so we began our march, down the cavernous streets of Los Angeles, proclamations of “Jesus is Lord!” echoing off the skyscrapers. I realize it sounds like a bunch of crazed religious lunatics being weird but undeniably, the power of God was displayed that day, dwarfing that mighty city. From that moment on, we were never the same.

The next day at church, we again tried to explain to our class what we had experienced, but, again, words fell woefully short. Our friends politely nodded their heads and smiled sympathetically. God had given this experience only to us and as much as we tried to share it, sadly it was, apparently, meant only for us. He was calling us – no one else. After our Sunday school class, Bill and I looked at each other knowingly and he said, “I don’t know about you, but I can’t go back.” And so, instead of going to church service that morning we went out for breakfast.

THE BIG MOVE

From that moment on, we spent much of our time making the 15-mile drive to and from Los Angeles and going to countless gatherings of the “Church in Los Angeles”: Sunday morning and evening, Wednesday evening and Saturday morning and evening.

The neighborhood around the meeting hall was in an old area of Los Angeles. The streets were lined with stately old mansions built around the early 1900’s. The area had fallen into disrepair and before the church came, it had been crime-ridden. However, people from the church began to move in and gradually began to bring it back to its former glory. The crime rate fell so low that the police rarely had to deal with any problems there. It was a wonderful, peaceful place.

I remember standing on the 3^rd floor balcony of a nearby apartment building one Saturday afternoon, watching the scene below me: people, young and old, walking down the tree-lined street, greeting one another with joyful smiles. Some were carrying food to someone else’s house where they were going to eat dinner together. Some were going to the meeting hall to prepare for a meeting. Some were just going to visit someone else. It was a living picture straight out of Acts 2:46-47: “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

And people were added daily. They came from all over the country – even all over the world. They were mostly young; hungry for the reality and joy of Jesus.

Saturday mornings were like heaven on earth. That was the day for service groups to meet together and work in their various tasks. Bill was on the Maintenance Group and I was on Cleaning and Arranging. Others served in the nursery; others in the office. It was such a joy to clean bathrooms and set up chairs together. All over the meeting hall people were singing and praying together as they worked. The atmosphere was so compelling it was hard to stay away.

And so later the next year we made the decision to sell our house in Burbank and move to this lovely neighborhood in downtown Los Angeles.

This is the place where God was leading us – and life was never the same …