Church With Valley View Is Holding Its 1st Services

The hilltop Bel Air Presbyterian Church, whose membership is drawn from both sides of the Santa Monica Mountains, will conduct its first Sunday services today in a $13.5-million church complex that features a picture-window view of the San Fernando Valley.

The congregation filled its 1,500-seat sanctuary to overflowing for a Friday night dedication service featuring views of twinkling city lights below, a string-accompanied 60-voice choir and nymph-like liturgical dancers. The Rev. Donn D. Moomaw expressed relief that years of construction delays and rising costs had all but ended.

“I believe in Satan more than ever before . . . and that he doesn’t want an evangelical church on the hill here,” said Moomaw, a 6-foot-4 onetime All-American lineman with UCLA now in his 27th year as senior pastor.

Moomaw also disclosed to 1,894 churchgoers sitting or standing in the balconied sanctuary that the church has only a temporary certificate of occupancy because Los Angeles city inspectors have yet to give final approval. The new building, on Mulholland Drive land the church has occupied since 1960, doubles the capacity of its old sanctuary and increases its classroom space by 25%.

About $8 million has been raised so far from contributions by church members.

“We don’t have the old Bel-Air wealth,” Moomaw said. “These are people who are giving sacrificially.”

The atmosphere at the Friday night service was celebratory and humor-filled.

Among well-wishing clergy present was the Rev. Jack Hayford, pastor of the Church on the Way in Van Nuys. Marveling at the 50-foot-high ceiling, Hayford joked:

“Praise the Lord! The Valley has a Vatican!”

Actually, the building will double as a synagogue this week for overflow crowds during High Holy Day services. Several hours after the two Presbyterian services this morning, Rosh Hashanah Eve services will be conducted by Stephen S. Wise Temple for celebrants without seats at the Reform congregation’s complex two miles to the east.

The 2,400-member church and 3,000-family Jewish temple also share parking and temporary classrooms on a site near the church. The temple’s Rabbi Isaiah Zeldin, extending congratulations Friday night, prayed that the new church will “become a blessed beacon for faith and hope.”

Bel Air Presbyterian’s membership includes former President Ronald Reagan and his wife, Nancy, who did not attend the dedication rites.

Members are quick to point out that the church budget allocates at least 15% for missions, including a homeless project on Los Angeles’ Westside.

More than $10,000 in contributions Friday night were earmarked for the Union Rescue Mission’s new facility under construction on Los Angeles’ Skid Row. It is uncertain if churchgoers gazing down at rich Encino estates, Ventura Boulevard high-rise buildings and beyond will find the view inspiring or sobering.

“I was overwhelmed,” said a church elder, Hollis Saulsberry of West Los Angeles. “I don’t think it’s going to be a Vatican, but I think it’s really going to be God’s house.”

Neil Matsuno of Moore Ruble Yudell Architects was quoted in a recent church newsletter as saying that with the light streaming into the asymmetrically designed sanctuary from many points, including the large view window, “one can’t help but get a spiritual feeling.”

Moomaw, who turns 60 next month, admitted that he was haunted by difficulties encountered in what started as a $7.9-million project in the mid-1980s. He said the Valley view should remind parishioners “of our need to be better prepared to meet the hard realities of our world.”